


A Northern Hymn

by all_the_kings_ham



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 1870s, AU, Bad Parents, But to be fair, Charlie Bradbury is a Winchester, F/F, Family Curses, Family Secrets, I have no idea what sorts of things to warn against, I just wanted to do a witch AU, I like spooky business, I'm Bad At Summaries, Love at First Sight, Lucifer Feels, M/M, Monsters, Non-Explicit Sex, Priest Castiel (Supernatural), Protective Lucifer, Shirtless Dean Winchester, Slow Burn, Soulmates, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Widower Castiel (Supernatural), Witch Dean Winchester, Witch Sam Winchester, Witches, and if that isn't doing it for you, and it got away from me, and maybe some grumpy men holding hands awkwardly, and spooky business, bad tagging, because even in ye oldie times, because she deserves to be alive, but I'm trying my best, but as always, but not in a traditional sort of way, but to balance it out we've got some, castiel being a good dad, charlie was amazing, good parenting, grim up north, historical butt touching, lots of that feeling of being lost in the woods, love me some slow burn, most of my ideas get away from me, old america, or to tempt you with, plot heavy, really I'm just sort of talking to myself instead of properly tagging things, them butts needed to be touched, there are going to be a few historical inaccuracies, there will be some butt touching, though I obviously took a small idea
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2019-11-01 11:56:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 56,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17866805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_the_kings_ham/pseuds/all_the_kings_ham
Summary: Nick never wanted to move to Maine, but that is where his younger brother's work called him, so that is where their small family went.Castiel throws himself headlong into his work, as expected.His niece Claire makes friends with the one person in town that she probably shouldn't, also as expected.But Nick can't seem to settle in. Something feels off about this place, a feeling that only worsens once he spends a little too long in the woods surrounding the town of Waterbridge





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I almost made it a whole month before posting again, but to be honest I'd started writing on this one the same day I finished up the last chapter of 'You've Got to Pay for What You Break'. I'd been bumping around the idea of this one for a long while.  
> Some of you have told me 'I'll read whatever you write' so I'm putting that to the test, because here we go with a plot heavy, turn of the 19th century story about witches and priests and things without names that move quietly through the forests.
> 
> I don't have an update scheduled planned for myself on this one. I'm just sort of getting writing done between work and bad reactions to new meds.

_3rd of August, in the year of our Lord 1872_

_Claire and Nicholas have grown more and more restless these past days, but the driver says that we are to arrive in the settlement before nightfall. It will be a mercy to have the ground under our feet once more. Men were not meant to sit idle like this for so long, and I worry what sort of trouble brews in my brother’s mind without the proper distractions of work._  

Castiel moved to dip his pen once more and frowned to see that his daughter had taken it and with one inky dark finger was drawing a moustache onto her sleeping uncle’s lip. Perhaps it wasn’t Nick that he should be so worried for. Out of his two traveling companions, it was really Claire who had been the most trouble. She continued refusing to study her poetry or scriptures, saying that the motion of the stage coach upset her stomach. The same went for her embroidery or knitting. She prefered to look longingly out the window at the green countryside and dark, dense forests, complaining how much she missed the cold stone buildings and busy streets of London.

As if she sensed her father’s eyes on her, Claire suddenly turned to look back. She held out the inkwell, the mischievous glint in her eyes at odd with the innocent little whisper of, “I thought you were done using it.”

He took back the ink and pushed the lid firmly into place, shaking his head. There was no point in scolding her, her uncle would have more than enough to say when he woke. “Recite,” he instructed instead.

She pursed her lips, looking so much like her mother as she pouted and turned her face towards the single window. Her words came clear, yet somehow still defiant,

“ _If thou must love me, let it be for nought_

_Except for love's sake only. Do not say_

_I love her for her smile ... her look ... her way_

_Of speak_ ing gently—”

“Claire,” he cut her off sharply. “A proper poem.” There was no point in asking her where she might have read something so inappropriate, the obviously guilty party had started to wake. He looked to his older brother, watching the man stifle a yawn and lightly smear the ink from his lip up to his cheek. “Nick, I’ve talked to you about what books are appropriate for Claire to be studying from, and smutty poetry has never been on that list.”

The other man only blinked owlishly, still not fully focused on his surroundings.

“A young woman should focus on history and religion. Philosophy if you must. But love poems?”

Nick sat up a little straighter, glancing at his niece and not quite hiding his smile before turning back to Castiel and using the same false innocent expression that she had. “Love poems? Now why would I let a fifteen-year-old girl anywhere near something like that? Think of the ideas she might start getting. Next thing you know she’ll be noticing young men exist, and maybe she will even speak to one. God forbid.”

“Do not blaspheme.”

“It’s not like I’ve been letting her read Lord Byron.” Nick sank back down, looking about ready to drift back to sleep. “Mrs. Browning’s work is very respectable. All the other teachers have their students read it.”

“Nicholas, please respect my wishes and keep her education scholarly and not worldly.”

“I’m practically an adult.” Claire smoothed her hands over her skirts. “I should be allowed to make my own decision on the sorts of things that I study.”

“ _When_ you are an adult you may make all the decisions you wish, my dove. But until that point, I would prefer that you focus on important things.”

“Important,” she repeated the word in a mocking whisper.

Very few days went by that Castiel did not regret his decision to raise his daughter the same way that he himself had been raised, with books and maths, and strong opinions. It’s not that he’d had many other choices. His wife had passed away giving birth to their only child and he’d never liked the idea of hiring some governess, some stranger, to come into their home. So his daughter had been raised as a son, too vocal and headstrong for her own good. He really only had himself to blame. Himself and his brother, and really, if he had to choose he’d much rather put most of the guilt onto Nick.

After all, Nick bore the blame so well.

“Recite,” Castiel said more gently this time, looking out the window as well. “Something befitting a young lady.”

Claire began again, naming constellations this time, her gloved fingers rapidly picking out their patterns among the pale dots on her dress. The six weeks they’d spent on the ship between London and here had given her the new interest in nautical star charts, which was yet another thing that a young lady did not need to spend her time on, but it was better than racy poetry, so her father let her continue.

He listened to her, watching the way that the old trees along the packed dirt road occasionally broke to show a glimpse of farmland. Once in a while, he’d see a person off in the distance who would stop their work and watch until the horses pulled the coach from sight.

Castiel had known almost nothing about the settlement of Waterbridge when he’d agreed to come out here. It was in Maine, and their previous minister had passed away with the fever that past spring, and that concluded the sum of his knowledge.

“This is... desolate,” She announced once she’d run out of stars.

“Nice word choice,” Nick nodded. “I would have gone with depressing.”

“Dismal?” She offered, grinning.

“Dreary.”

“Disheartening.”

“Both of you stop it.” Irritated, Castiel closed the journal in his lap and began to pack his things into the case under his seat. “This is our home now. Try to greet it with some respect. With... optimism.”

“It’s difficult to be optimistic about leaving all your friends,” Claire turned from the window, her eyes dark as a quiet anger instantly rose back to the surface, “and your home, and your country, to go live in the wilderness with a bunch of anarchists who don’t even have the sense enough to have a queen.” Apparently, she’d decided to continue being upset about this move, despite the two months and thousands upon thousands of miles from home that they now were.

It was times like this that Castiel wished that Amelia were still alive. She’d have known what to say. She’d always known what to say.

With a sigh he took from his bag the old pearl handled brush and with a little too much hope he held it up for Claire to see.

A hint of a smile tugged at her and she touched her hair. “I suppose I should try and look presentable for the new neighbors.” Adjusting all of her skirts she moved to sit on the floor between the benches with her back to her father.

Carefully, just like he had been doing since she was a babe, he took her hair down from its braids and brushed it out. Just because they’d spent the last week packed into the coach didn’t mean that his only child needed to _look_ like she’d been on the road for so long. She deserved to make a good impression, if only because that sort of thing was important to her.

By the time the view outside the window had given way to what could pass for a proper town, if not a very small one, Castiel had managed to fix his daughter’s hair up into the complicated braids that had been so fashionable back at home.  

The coach rolled to a stop and the horses could be heard stomping and snorting. The driver came down and opened the door for them, smiling a tired smile. “Welcome home.”

Though they’d only really spoke in the evenings to their driver and his young son who rode on top of the coach with him, a week together had given Castiel a certain fondness of the man. He pulled himself from his cramped sitting position and stepped out into the late afternoon sunlight, looking up at the simple and perfect little white church building they’d stopped in front of.

Taking their driver’s hand, he grasped it firmly. “Thank you, Davis.” Turning, Castiel looked up at the ten-year-old boy who was still holding the horse’s reins. “Young Master Davis, we are forever indebted to your fine driving skills.”

The kid grinned a gap-toothed grin and gave a small half bow. “Our pleasure, Father.”

Smiling to himself, he reached into the coach to help Claire down. She stepped out into her new kingdom, her traveling clothes swishing around her as she looked around with a critical eye.

People were already starting to gather, and by the way that they whispered and stared, it was likely that visitors were uncommon in these parts.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt so overdressed in my life.” Despite her usual confidence, Claire stayed close to his side, her voice soft. “They look like they’re all dressed for a funeral.”

“Country fashion, love. No one wears color or a smile out here in the woods.”  Nick emerged last, blinking into the too bright light. “It’s a far cry from London, but we’ll all have to get used to it.”

“Both of you be nice.” After such a long journey, Castiel had had quite enough of their snide comments.

Before he could tell his brother to come help with the luggage the crowd started to creep closer. One man in particular stepping free from the group, coming forward with a politician’s smile. “You must be Father Novak. We weren’t expecting you for another few days. Welcome. Welcome.”

His own superiors back in London had been the point of contact for Waterbridge. They’d been the ones who’d told Castiel of this town’s need for a new pastor. They had been the ones to talk him into coming here. So he could only make an educated guess as to who he was taking to. Smiling softly, Castile held out his hand to the man. “And you must be Mayor Roman.”

“Richard Roman. Guilty as charged,” he kept that wide grin, taking Castiel’s hand and shaking it. “Please, call me Dick. This here must be your lovely daughter Claire, and this is…”

“And my older brother Nicholas.”

The mayor greeted them both in turn before putting an arm around Castiel’s shoulders. “You all must be exhausted from your trip. We had planned a welcoming party for your arrival, but perhaps it’s best if we save it for tomorrow night.”

Stiffening slightly, Castiel worried that all Americans might be this… touchy. He hoped not. “Tomorrow night might be more favorable.”

“Then tomorrow.” Dick rapped Castiel on the back twice before releasing him. Then, with the smile still in place and a few easy words he enlisted the help of the nearest menfolk to help move the luggage.

Behind the church, through a sparse but well-kept cemetery, was a small house. Aside from the garden being a little overgrown, and the fact that there were only two narrow beds set up in the single bedroom, it was really quite lovely in a simple sort of way. Very different from their home on the outskirts of London, but not in an unpleasant way. It was a fresh start. A kitchen in which Amelia had never sung softly while making tea. A chair beside fireplace where she had never sat and read with him. It was a terrible sort of thing to be grateful for, but all the same, grateful was exactly what Castiel was.

With all their few and well-packed belongings piled just inside the hall, and a generously donated minced pie set out for an early dinner, the three of them were left to settle in.

No sooner than he had closed the front door, his final ‘thank you's’ not yet faded from his lips, did his brother turn on him.

Grabbing Castiel by a shoulder, Nick loomed with a deep frown in place. “When you sold me on this idea of a new life you failed to mention the fact that we would be living in a churchyard.”

“Well, where do you expect the preacher to live?” Pulling away, not even remotely intimidated, Castiel went to start unpacking the nearest trunk.

“I am _not_ a man of God, Cassie. Aren’t there rules against someone like me being here?”

“God loves all his children, even the degenerate ones,” he affectionately reminded his brother. “He forgives those willing to repent.”

With a frustrated sound, Nick started to pace the narrow hall between the bedroom and the rest of the home.“Yes well, that’s nice rhetoric, but I’m not a member of your congregation. So please spare me.”

“We can talk about this later.” Castiel was overly aware of how Claire had stopped putting her dresses away and was instead watching this argument with rapt attention.

“I’m not sleeping here.”

“That’s nice,” he could be just as stubborn as his brother, and simply moved to look through their things for the tea set. He hadn’t been able to make a proper pot of tea in weeks. “Before you run off looking for a more suitable home for yourself why don’t you go and clean that ink off your face. You look ridiculous.”

 

**.:.**

 

Uncle Nick did not, in fact, find somewhere else to sleep, but he’d always been full of idle threats. It wasn’t like there was somewhere else he could go anyways. Not unless he’d wanted to sleep in the actual church. The town didn’t even have a hotel, which wasn’t surprising, seeing as it didn’t have any restaurants or proper stores either. As their small tour continued, Claire wondered more and more what on earth she was supposed to do with herself out here in the middle of nowhere.

The Mayor, who was rather handsome even if he did smile too much, had been only too happy to take them through the town the day after they arrived. Despite the fact that Claire had put on her most boring brown and green dress, she still felt like a rose in a sea of wheat. And it made perfect sense to her that none of the people who were introduced to her father was dressed in anything other than practical work clothes, seeing as it was the middle of the day, but it was still depressing. The women all had their hair covered with proper bonnets, some wearing aprons over their dreary grey or black dresses. No patterns, no pretty colors. She only hoped that this ‘party’ tonight would inspire people to put on something less drab. It’s not like clothes had ever been all that important to her, but she’d also never stood out of the crowd so painfully before.

As she caught yet another pair of women, heads bowed together as they whispered and glanced towards her and her family, Claire wished that she’d stayed back up at the new house.

Word had obviously spread that the new preacher had arrived, because every time she turned around more and more people were standing about in the streets, waiting their turn to greet her father. It was very strange, and she did her best to hang back alongside her uncle and stay out of the way.

“Are you cold?” Nick touched her shoulder.

Claire realised that she’d been hugging herself. “I wasn’t ready for the wind I suppose.”

“Do you want me to go get one of your shawls?”

Not that her uncle wasn’t perfectly lovely when he wanted to be, but it was obvious that his offer had less to do with her slight chill and everything to do with finding an excuse to step away.

Reaching out to catch his arm, she tried to keep him here, “You would really leave me―just like that?”

“Your father will keep you safe, he’s a good man.” With a guarded smile he pulled away, eager to be free of the curious townsfolk.

“You’re a monster,” she hissed softly after him. Not surprised, but still disappointed to be abandoned so easily. Forced to stand closer to her father and Mr. Roman meant that Claire was also forced to join in the polite greetings more than an occasional nod.

“Of course we’ll start service this Sunday,” her father was assuring a man with a boring beard, and his pinch-faced wife, and their four children. “I thought it best to ring the bells at ten and begin the sermon at half past.”

“Father Richmond always started his sermons well after lunch,” the man was actually trying to correct her father.

“I find that hearing the good word early in the morning helps to clear the mind and open the heart for the rest of the day.” Dad was the sort of person to smile and oh so politely tell people to get bent, and Claire had always loved that about him. He had a certain subtlety that Uncle Nick always lacked.

While the fool of a bearded man kept trying to argue, Claire found herself distracted by Mr. Roman who was suddenly giving a quick apology before stepping away. Naturally, she followed him.

From what had been explained this morning the township of Waterbridge covered roughly fifty miles. There were nearly twenty families spread out over the area centered around the church, general store, tavern, smithy, and courthouse. A river ran through town, the road crossing it at a sharp right angle, a squat stone bridge leading out towards more woods, away from the direction that they had arrived from. Currently coming across the bridge was a small cart being drawn by the biggest, blackest horse that had ever existed. Mr. Roman was making a quick beeline towards the cart as if to stop it before it could even cross the bridge.

The person driving the cart had red hair, which shouldn’t have been _the_ defining characteristic that Claire came up with, but it was the first thing that she noticed and it was difficult to look beyond it. No bonnet. No hat. The woman’s shoulder length hair was the color of oxblood and wind whipped around her narrow face in the morning breeze.

“Whoah, Winchester,” Mr. Roman held his hands out, standing in the horse’s path. He didn’t speak too loudly and Claire had a feeling that this was supposed to be a private matter between the mayor and the woman who had a smile as seemingly carefree as the rest of her. “We talked about this. One of your brothers is supposed to make the deliveries.”

“I know, _Dick_.” She said the name like an insult, pulling the reins on the horse so that it stopped before trampling the man. “I’m not welcome. You made that very clear the last time. But Sam and Dean are still out hunting, and they told me if they weren't back by the new moon to make the delivery for them.”

“Hunting?” He sounded skeptical, all his friendly politician smiles not wasted on this woman who he obviously knew well.

“Keeping your little paradise safe from bears, and wolves, and only god knows what else.” She mused and leaned forward, elbows on her knees.

Claire noted that this woman was wearing pants. A man’s white shirt, a patched jacket, and dark trousers. It was possibly the strangest thing that she had seen in her entire young life and it was mesmerising.

“There are no bears in these woods, Charlie,” Mr. Roman said very sternly.

“Yeah, alright.” She rested her chin on a fist, smiling. “You want to ease up on the hostility, Dick? I’m here to make a trade.”

“We trade with your brothers. Not you. That was the agreement after last time.”

“I’m here to deliver freshly brewed spirits, not to corrupt your young women.” Charlie winked at Claire before grinning at the man. “You want to trade with my brothers you’re going to have to wait for them to get back, which means the tavern runs dry and you’ve got no sacramental wine for the new preacher. But that’s your choice, _Mayor_ Roman.”

Flustered, though she didn’t know why, Claire looked down at the toes of her boots, hardly noticing when Mr. Roman turned to her.

“Oh, I didn’t realise you’d come along this way, young Miss Novak.” His smile was instantly in place and he gently began to herd her back towards town like an old woman with chickens.

“It’s not often we see a new face in these parts, Dick.” Charlie swung herself down from her cart, long legs very noticable. She was slender and moved with nearly none of the careful restraint that a young woman should have. “You going to introduce us?”

“No.” Oddly, Mr. Roman’s tone had turned protective in the same way that Claire’s father’s would. “This is our new preacher’s only daughter, who you have no business with. It’s best for everyone if you unpack your goods and head back home, Winchester.”

“Rude,” she was laughing though, not bothered at all by the lack of social decorum. “You want to lend a hand, Dick? Otherwise, you’ve got me on your bridge for longer than you’d like.”

Claire wasn’t stupid, and even though a large portion of this was going over her head, she could tell that there was some history standing between the mayor and this very strange woman. Never one to back down from obvious trouble, she sidestepped Mr. Roman and piped up, “I can help.”

“Come now,” he was having none of it. “You wouldn’t want to get your nice dress dirty. I’ll have some of the men help with the kegs. Why don’t you head back to your father?” To his credit, it was a very reasonable suggestion and he genuinely seemed like he wanted to keep Claire from the pants wearing woman for reasons that were his own.

She would have argued, simply because this man had no business telling her not to help, even if he seemed to mean well, only a few of the townsfolk who’d come out to meet her father had made their way to the bridge. They helped to unload four hefty kegs, and each one politely never looked at Charlie, and hardly said more than a soft ‘good day’ to her. The work was quick but rather serious, and while they were all occupied with replenishing their town’s ale supply, Claire found that she had some company on her corner of the bridge.

It was strange to see a woman out of a proper dress, and though Charlie was fully covered from her throat to her feet, she may as well have been in her underclothes. It was indecent and in a strange way sort of beautiful. She smiled at Claire and held out a glass bottle filled with something as deep red as her hair.

“Now, I’ve never heard of a preacher with a daughter before. I thought they had to be… you know, married to the Lord,” she smelled like spring, “but maybe they do things differently out there where you’re from.”  

“You’re thinking of Catholics…” Claire carefully took the bottle and cradled it in her arms like it was a baby. “We’re Presbyterian. Also, hello. I like your hair.”

“Hello,” she laughed softly. “And thanks. You’ll want to run along. Take that to your father with compliments from the Winchesters. We’re happy to have you both. This town’s felt lost without a bit of guidance.”

“Can I invite you to stay for the party this evening?” It was a lovely coincidence when good manners aligned with stirring up trouble. Claire was rarely ever given such a beautiful opportunity.

Charlie’s whole answer was a surprised laugh behind a pale hand.

“It _is_ a welcome party for my family, so that sort of makes it my party, don’t you think? And I was always taught it was rude to exclude people. You know I’d hate to start my new life here being rude to anyone.”

“And I hate to disappoint you,” she smiled, “but I’ve known Dicky here since we were kids and I can tell you that he isn’t going to let the town witch stay and spoil his party.”

Slightly taken aback, Claire awkwardly rocked the bottle of wine trying to think of the proper way to respond to that sort of self-deprecating teasing. After an awkward moment she settled on the sort of response she’d give her uncle if she were talking to him after one of his miserable late nights. “Oh. Here now I thought witches had gone out of style in America quite some time ago.”

“You might be surprised what sorts of old traditions we’re holding on to here in Waterbridge.” Charlie looked back to her now empty cart and her beautiful horse who was pulling up grass from the bank of the river. “Take care of yourself, young miss Novak.”

“Of course.” She recognised a good-bye when she heard one, and years of etiquette kicked in as she bobbed into a small curtsy. “Take care of yourself as well, miss Charlie. Perhaps I will see you for the next delivery?”

“Perhaps.”

“I look forward to it,” and she wasn’t really sure why.

Claire stayed on the bridge, watching that woman in pants lead her horse back down the road until it curved off into the woods and she was gone from sight. She jumped only a touch when her uncle came up behind her and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. Soon enough it would be too warm for the extra layer, but that was just the fun of these cold autumn mornings.

“Did I miss something?” Nick asked eying the men rolling the kegs towards the tavern.

She pressed the bottle of wine into his hands, because if one of them was going to be responsible for something so important she’d rather it be him. “I think I just met the town’s spinster―and aside from bringing wine for sacrament and ale for the rest of town, she was... absolutely delightful.”

“I could see you from the churchyard. That was a woman you were talking to?”

“Yes.”

“But she had on trousers.”

“Yes,” smiling at her boots, she pulled her shawl tighter, wondering why the eccentric spinsters back in London were never quite so interesting.

Uncle Nick let out a soft whistle before running a hand through his hair and walking away while muttering, “Oh and here your father was worried about you reading poems and noticing men. Poor sod never anticipated a woman in trousers.”

Very confused as to what he meant, Claire frowned and hurried after him.

 

**.:.**

 

Back in London Castiel had spent years avoiding parties, even before he took his vows. His teachers and parents had called him bookish and shy. His older brother had called him painfully awkward. Through practice he’d learned to smile his way through most social situations―a task made increasingly more difficult when the party was in his honor and everyone seemed to want a turn speaking to him.

To make matters worse he’d been utterly abandoned by his family. Nick had simply vanished, and Claire had caught the eye of no less than five young men. Though she stayed within arm’s reach she hadn’t turned to him for over an hour. Claire was charming and lovely, and despite Castiel’s wishes his daughter had always been destined to one day look up from her books and notice the rest of the world.

Part of him hated it, but honestly, he was happy for her because it was the first time he’d seen her smiling so openly since the ship here to America. And as a father, he’d much prefer his daughter to be smiling in the company of young men her own age than at sailors with questionable intentions.

“They grow up fast. Don’t they, Father?”

“They certainly do.” He looked over to the dark-haired woman who’d come to stand beside him, racking his brain to remember her name. He’d been introduced to so many people today.

“You’d think we never taught our boys manners from the way they’re standing around her gawking.” She shook her head, offering a gentle sort of smile to Castiel. “I can’t speak for anyone else’s boy, but I apologise for Owen.”

That’s who she was. Mrs. Mills. Widow. Only son Owen. According to Dick the stern looking woman’s husband had been the town judge. As one of the few people in town who could write she kept all the town’s legal records, births, deaths, disagreements. Though there was a new judge now, Mrs. Mills apparently knew more about the law than him and still advised on most things in a way that everyone knew about but no one ever mentioned.

“He seems like a good lad.” Castiel smiled back.

She made small talk with him, one parent to another, very polite and pleasantly distracting until another woman came to steal her away. There were vague promises to see each other again on Sunday and he was left alone in his corner to keep an eagle’s eye on his daughter who had apparently been socially deprived for too long.

That thought reminded him that he hadn’t seen his brother since the party started. Though back in London he never would have considered leaving his daughter alone and unchaperoned at a party, this was basically a room filled to bursting with chaperones. She would be fine without him for a few moments while he went to go pull Nick off of whatever misguided soul he’d inevitably found.  

With a lecture on morality poised at the tip of his tongue, Castiel stepped outside. Through the open windows he could hear the laughter and voices spilling from the party in the Mayor’s home. It was all still foreign to him. The people. This town. The smell of the forests, the sound of the river, the unfamiliarity of everyone's faces. The only part of this that was familiar was the shadows around the side of the house where he could just barely make out Nick’s overly tall figure tangled with someone else.

“What a lovely night,” Castiel announced. “Don’t you two think?”

There were some surprised words, and rather quickly a young woman disengaged from the shadows and Castiel’s older brother, hurrying back inside with her head down and a mumbled, “Ev’ning, Father.”

Castiel didn’t recognise the woman. The moonless dark was apparently in her favor and for tonight she would be spared a lecture.

Sinking down with his back to the wall, Nick slurred softly, “You… you, ass.”  

“And you are drunk. Lovely.” Castiel came and sat beside his brother, mindful of the bricks he was leaning against..

“ ‘m not drunk.”

“Well, you’re not sober.”

“God. I hate it here.”

“Even though you’ve already managed to make a friend?”

Nick pressed his forehead to his knees and grunted before pointing out rather spitefully, “You scared her off.”

“Her conscience scared her off.” Castiel reached over and picked imaginary lint from his brother’s shoulder. “Not everyone is as morally depraved as you.”

“And not everyone can go to an Easter picnic when they’re eight and meet the love of their life. The rest of us have to scrounge around in the dirt, Cassie.”

His brother was a terrible person, and if Castiel wasn’t filled with patience and forgiveness then it would be so much harder to love him. “We’ve been here less than two days. For at least a little while longer can you try to care what people think of you, and by proxy Claire? Please don’t make this move harder for her than it needs to be by branding her the niece of a lecherous drunk.”

“I should have stayed back in London.”

“I had to bail you out of prison back in London.” As much as he hated to point out when someone owed him a favor, Castiel couldn’t help but remind his brother, “I lied to two different judges for you.”

“Never asked you to.”

“You would have done the same for me.”

“No,” he replied a little too quickly. “If you were anything at all like me, if our places were switched, I would have left you there to rot.”

Tight-lipped, Castiel forced a smile. “Nick, why don’t you take yourself back to the house and get some sleep?”

Nick grunted and leaned over to kiss his younger brother’s cheek before stumbling to his feet.

“And be mindful you don’t fall into the river,” Castiel watched his brother stagger only a touch as he started down the road towards the churchyard, “you were never a strong swimmer.”

“With all respect, _Father_ , kindly crawl up your own ass.”

He watched his brother go until Nick faded into the dim, starlit night. No splash followed, so the drunk man probably managed to stay on the road. If it had been anyone else Castiel would have walked with them out of concern for their safety, but Nick had always been a fairly lucid and capable drunk, plus he never would have accepted the help.

Castiel stayed outside for a long few minutes, taking time to calm himself and put a smile back into place before returning to the party.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's late here in California and seeing as we're one of the last time zones most of you probably wont get this until Thursday-ish   
> so! happy Thursday. Hope it's treating you well so far.  
> And thank you thank you for the positive response to this story. I'm a few chapters into writing it and really just enjoying myself far too much. It's always a pleasure to have y'all along for company, as we boldly explore new territory and ships and monsters <3  
> That said, I'd love feedback if you have it. Good, bad, suggestions, predictions.

Apparently proper young ladies kept journals. Claire didn’t know why. All the girls back home had talked about filling pages with poetry, their thoughts on love, collecting stories to one day tell their children, that sort of nonsense. Claire, however, was far from a poet. She’d never been in love, or even thoroughly charmed by any of the young men back home, and as far as she was concerned nothing in her life had felt worthy of a story to pass on to her one day children.

Even still, if only to appease her father (who seemed to think that idle time was the worst thing that could ever happen to his daughter), she’d started writing the day they left England. The pages became quickly marked with carefully drawn constellations and some of the stories that she’d learned from the sailors. Even if nothing interesting had ever bothered happening to her, she could at least save some of the more inappropriate limericks she’d overheard. 

Meeting Charlie on the bridge yesterday before the party had been one of the first things that felt too important  _ not _ to write down. 

The party ran late, leading to hardly enough sleep at all before a Sunday filled with more greetings and awkward pleasantries. By the time that service was over and Claire was only too eager to tuck close to her journal that night, with a candle at her elbow, and write about the only interesting person she’d met so far.

“Can you even see what you’re writing? It’s so dark in here.” Uncle ghosted past behind her, peering at her journal.

Self-conscious, Clair covered up the still damp ink with both hands. “I’m fine. Go away.”

Making that knowing sound of his, he drifted across the room. “Well, I’m not fine. My old man eyes are never going to get used to candle light instead of proper gas lights. I think I saw a lantern in the cellar. Go fetch it?”

“You just want me to leave my journal here for you to look though, you nosey old man.” 

“What I want is to get dinner started before Cas comes back.”

Claire looked out the little window towards the church, the steeple casting long shadows over the graveyard as the day was winding down and the sun sinking low. A cheery glow still came from the tall narrow windows, and distant voices drifted on the breeze. The evening scripture study was still in full swing. Dad would be tired once he finally made his way back up to the house.     

She carefully closed the little book, slipping it into a pocket. “Just down in the cellar?”

“ _ Mmmhm _ ,” Uncle Nick started pulling out the beginnings of a meal, “down with the rest of the junk good father Richmond was so kind to leave for us.”

Claire loved her uncle, even when he put in the effort to be so rude as to speak ill of the dead. 

With her candle to light the way, she padded softly down into the glorified closet. Though the house had initially looked emptied before their arrival they’d been surprised to discover that many odds and ends belonging to the house’s previous occupant still remained in the cellar. There were some barrels and jars lining one wall, filled with grain, potatoes, onions, and similar sorts of foods that had been generously donated by the town. The opposite wall was shelves holding faded linens, empty luggage, quilts, books, a sewing basket, and so many useless sorts of things that one would expect to find accumulated in someone's cellar after years.     

Distracted, Claire placed her candle holder on one of the shelves and ran a finger over the spine of each book in turn. One, in particular, caught her eye. It was smaller than the others and simply had four white dots arranged into a triangle where its title should be. Flipping it open she saw delicate letters in twisting spiralled writing alongside small drawings of birds and fish and geometric patterns. 

“Did you find it?” Uncle called down to her.

Pushing the book into the pocket with her journal, Claire shouted back, “No,” and actually started looking for the lantern, finding it rather quickly. The glass dome of the lantern was dusty and clouded, spiderwebs decorating the inside, but it was heavy and felt like it might still have some oil in it. She brought it up to her uncle, setting it onto the table and taking her new book out to the porch to read in the failing daylight.

She’d been expecting it to be the journal of Father Richmond’s wife, considering the feminine script. Hopefully pages filled with something to brighten the very long and uneventful days. Maybe some good gossip on the people who lived in this town.  

She was very wrong.

 

**.:.**

 

It was unseasonably warm for autumn, and with the sun beating down against his back, Sam had already started to sweat through his shirt. Tightening the ropes, he gave each cask a firm shake and nodded to himself. He could hear his brother climbing up into the front of the wagon and without looking up he asked, “I thought your leg was hurting too bad for you to come… or was that just an excuse so I’d do all the heavy lifting?”

“If you’d wanted help you should have said so.”

Startled, Sam turned to see Charlie, not Dean sitting up there and too quickly he said, “Go back inside. You’re not coming.” 

“Could have fooled me, because it  _ really _ looks like I am.”

“Why do you and Dean insist on going out of your way to make trouble?

She grinned a stubborn grin, the same sort of one that their mother had always had. It meant that her mind had been made up and if Sam wanted to stand here and argue he was welcome to, but it would only be a waste of breath and delay the trip into town. 

Feeling far too defeated for so early in the morning, Sam came around and double checked the horse’s tack before climbing up into the seat. There was a basket between Charlie’s feet, filled with dried herbs, a loaf of bread, and a small clay pot that looks suspiciously like one of the honey jars from the shelf basement. 

“I can take those for you.” He nodded to her care package, hoping she’d have a last minute change of heart. “Just tell me who they go to…”

“I’d rather deliver them myself.” She pushed her hair up off her neck and leaned back, taking in some of that strong morning sun and looking so comfortable and utterly unmovable. 

There had been only two visitors to the house in the last month, and both had been helped and sent on their way. Bobby Singer, who came by every few weeks, had wanted something for his wife’s headaches. And only yesterday Mrs. Turner had come with her eldest two daughters and talked at length with Charlie about things that Sam knew were none of his business. Nothing in that basket looked medicinal, so he had no good guess as to who might need it.

Sam got the horse going, flicking the reins and clicking his tongue. “At least promise me you won't start a fight with Dick again.”

“I’ve never  _ started _ a fight with him.”

There were times that Sam felt like the only rational, non-confrontational member of his family and that he spent most of his time keeping his brother and sister from stirring up unnecessary trouble. “You kissed the man’s wife.”

Face still turned to the sky, Charlie grinned. “She kissed me first.”

In some ways, Charlie could be worse than Dean and Sam had to make himself turn his face away and examine the trees along the roadside so his sister couldn’t see his smile. 

“Promise I’ll be on my best behavior,” which was a promise that meant basically nothing considering who it was coming from.

“I’m holding you to it.” He glanced back at the carefully packed basket and thought that he saw the last of the blackberries that he’d spent a good few hours picking yesterday. And he could have asked who it was that had tempted Charlie back into town with a present in tow, but Sam really felt that the less he knew the better it’d be for him.

The ride to town wasn’t quick but it gave them time to talk about what they should plant in the spring, which led them to how there should be a partial lunar eclipse in a week and how they needed to really get ready for it since Dean was laid up and wouldn’t be able to do much more than sit and read. He’d be no help restocking their cupboards with the ingredients that could only be found during an eclipse, which meant double the work for Sam and Charlie. Laughing they made bets on how long it would take Dean to heal up, and then how long he’d be pretending he was still too hurt to help around the house. 

The morning ran out as the old road unwound itself and spilled from the forest into the heart of town. For the first time in months, there was smoke rising from the little white house behind the churchyard, and Sam smiled. Things had felt off since Father Richmond passed away. Dean insisted it was only Sam’s imagination, but the woods had become uneasy at night and the wind had found a bitter taste. Having a man of God here once again could only help things.

Tapping his arm, his sister announced, “This is where I get out. You’ll be fine unloading the beer without me?”

“I got it all in without your help, I can get it all back out.” But Sam’s smile was short lived. “Charlie… this is the church,” he felt it was a little too obvious to bother pointing out, but surely one of them was confused.

However, Charlie was lifting her basket and hopping down from the slowly rolling cart. “I’ll meet you back here on the road when you’re done.”

Sam wanted to argue that his sister hadn’t been inside of a church since her christening some seventeen years ago―however, her stopping here meant that she wouldn’t be crossing the bridge into town, which had been the agreement after all the trouble last time. He let her go, glancing back over his shoulder from time to time to watch his sister skirt around the graveyard and march up the porch to the preacher’s home. 

It seemed the basket was to be a preemptive peace offering for the new preacher, which was not a bad idea, to be honest. Whatever stories the man must have heard by this point about the Winchesters had to be rather damning, and if any truths had been mixed in it would be even worse for them.

Charlie doing damage control made him nervous, but rather her than him. Sam was fairly certain that he’d have never made it past the graveyard.

The cart clattered loudly over the stone bridge and Sam nodded to the few men he saw, smiling as they nodded back in turn. ‘Winchester’ might be a bit of a dirty word to most of the town, but they liked their drink, and so they nodded to Sam like they were all old friends. Some of them used to be. Some were the older versions of the boys that he used to play with years ago. A lot had changed since then.

Bobby Singer had been friends with his father, and the old man was one of the few people left here in Waterbridge who always gave an honest smile, which was saying something since as a general rule he was a mean son of a bitch to anyone and everyone who darkened his doorway. Even so, he came out of the tavern to meet Sam, scratching at his beard to try and hide the gentle expression he wore. 

“Could have spared yourself the trip if you’d had let me take these when I came out to get Ellen’s tea.”

Pulling the reins short he grinned, leaning forward on the cart to pat the rear of the sleek black horse. “She likes the walk out here.”

Looking at the empty place beside Sam, Bobby nodded, “Your brother still laid up?”

“He’s still sleeping off the worst of it.” Sam jumped down, shaking his head at the memory of last night and his brother refusing any of the more traditional remedies offered to him in favor of drinking himself free of pain. 

Without being asked, Bobby came around the cart and helped untie the kegs, though he left the heavy lifting to the younger man. “Ellen’s going to make you stay for lunch.”

“Not today. Charlie came with me―”

“Charlie is just as welcome as you.”

“You know what Dick said.” Sam lifted one keg under each arm, grunting softly, “Anyway, I left her back on the other side of the river, she wanted to swing into the church to drop off a few things. I can’t stay long.”

Bobby held the door open for him but the entrance was blocked by an unfamiliar man with dark hair and very strikingly bright eyes that widened as he looked up, and up, and up at Sam. “I look forward to whatever a ‘few things’ means.” 

The sharp white of his collar against the black of his shirt said that this must be the new pastor. He was much younger than Sam had imagined. Significantly younger than Father Richmond―no grey at his temples, no lines on his face other than at the corners of his eyes as he peered up at Sam with a smile that never quite reached his mouth. 

“Hello,” shifting the weight of the two kegs, Sam cleared his throat. “I don’t wanna’ be rude, Father, but do you mind getting out of the way? These are heavier than they look.”

With a small exclamation under his breath, the man did not get out of the way, but instead took one of the kegs from Sam, apologizing the whole time. “Of course, of course. Sorry. I seem to have forgotten my manners. I was a bit, um… well, stunned. I’ve never actually seen anyone taller than my brother. If you’ll forgive me for saying so.”

All that was nothing like a hello or an introduction, but people had certainly said stranger things to Sam over the years. 

The Father helped unload the cart and gave a hesitant nod towards the wooden crate in the corner, asking silently if it was to go inside as well. 

“I’ll get it.” They weren’t things that would concern a man of God and Sam would rather not have to answer any uncomfortable questions. He lifted the small wooden box, hefting it up onto a shoulder before smiling. “Thank you.”

“Now, am I right in guessing that you’re one of the Winchesters?” The young preacher asked.

“It’s a fair guess,” he grinned, and then realised that he was standing there grinning at the preacher, and took himself quickly inside. “I’m Sam, the middle of the Winchester kids.” 

“It’s good to finally put a face with the name.” A smile almost reached him then, and he lowered his head in an unnecessarily polite sort of nod. “I’m Father Novak.”

“Glad to have you.” Sam set the crate back behind the counter, nodding to Bobby. 

The old man would know what to do with the little carefully wrapped parcels. Each had a name written on the tag, marking who they went to in Sam’s own careful writing. As much as everyone in the town whispered behind their hands and gave the brother’s and their sister sideways glances, at least five families relied on the carefully mixed remedies for various ailments and problems. There was one older man needed help sleeping, one woman who wanted to stop having kids after her fifth one, someone’s child who had difficulty breathing, those sorts of things. 

In another town, somewhere more progressive, their little ways of helping might have earned one of the siblings a proper title like ‘doctor’. But out here in Waterbridge, where people still whispered about his mother Mary, as a young girl dancing naked under the moon and talking to things no one else could see, where people remembered his father’s stories of monsters in the woods, there was another name for their family and what they did. 

“I haven’t seen your face in church yet,” the preacher said in a polite sort of accusation. 

And Sam thought it would be best to make up a valid sounding excuse instead of the truth, because it was best to put off the inevitable alienation of their family for as long as possible. “Sorry, Father, but you probably won't. It’s a half day’s ride from our farm into town, so we don’t really make it out here except for deliveries once a month.” 

“Deliveries could be on a Sunday.”

Oh no. 

It was going to be like that. 

Sam helped himself to a glass from behind the counter, pouring a shot of last year’s corn whiskey. It burned his throat and he hated this particular recipe. He’d talk to Dean about it tonight. “What about keeping the Sabbath holy… isn’t that a rule? Wouldn’t us bringing liquor to sell on a Sunday sort of offend God?”

The preacher chuckled a soft huff of air through his nose. “I was warned about the stubbornness of your family. But I saw in the church records that your parents had all three of you baptised, so I feel like there’s still hope, and I’m a patient man.”

“No offence,” maybe a more direct approach would be better, “but we haven’t been to church since we went to bury our father and were told that he wasn’t welcome in a good Christian cemetery. So we’ll keep our distance if it’s all the same.”

That shut the preacher up, which meant that Sam instantly felt guilty. 

“Bit of a sore topic with these kids.” Bobby mercifully stepped in to fill that uncomfortable silence. “Don’t take it personal, Father.”

“I-I didn’t,” his slightly stunned look melting away. “You’ll have to forgive me, Sam. When I agreed to come to this town I agreed to worry over the souls of everyone here. If I’m overstepping at any point just say so.”

Sam wouldn’t use the word  _ ‘soft’  _ to describe this new preacher, but the man was worlds different from Father Richmond. Maybe because he was so young, or maybe because he was apologising where he didn’t need to. Either way, it was a blessing that Dean wasn’t here today because he’d have picked the man apart like a vulture cleaning bones.

“No harm done.” He finished what was left of the drink he’d poured for himself before putting the glass back away. “And I’ll take your invitation for a Sunday delivery back to my brother, but don’t hold any hope for us.”

“I’d like to invite him myself,” the father offered in the way that only a truly naive person could. “You said that he was just dropping something off up at the house?”

“What? No. No, my  _ sister  _ Charlie is up at the house,” though doing only God knew what at this point seeing as the preacher was here in town. Hopefully, she wasn’t snooping around. “Dean is our older brother. He’s laid up in bed. Got bit by a... snake a few days back.” Sam lied to the preacher and that almost definitely was a sin and he’d worry about that later.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Oh, he’ll be fine.” Thought the creature that took Dean’s legs out from under him hadn’t been a snake, it was a much more believable story than the truth. And really, his brother would be fine.

“Still… I’ll pray for him.”

“I-I will let him know,” Sam said without any hint of laughter in his voice, though it took effort. “It was nice to meet you, Father Novak―”

“Castiel.”

“What?”

“Seeing as we’re not in church, it might make you a little more comfortable to call me by the first name.”

It might have, if the man’s name wasn’t so strange.

“Come. I’ll walk with you back to your sister Charlie.”

Sam wanted to say no thank you. He was fairly certain that he even tried, and yet somehow he ended up leading the horse and cart back over the bridge and up the road towards the church, one fresh-faced preacher keeping stride with him. There wasn’t much to say, mostly because Sam had run out of polite small talk. What are you supposed to say to a preacher anyhow?

It didn’t seem to bother Castiel though, as he spent the short walk talking to the horse and lightly scratching her neck, utterly enchanted by the enormous creature. And though he’d been polite and welcoming with Sam, he smiled openly at the horse, his whole face lighting up like he and the animal were old friends deeply engaged in conversation. 

“What’s his name?”

Sam looked over the animal’s back and for a moment found himself distracted by the way that the preacher smiled. “The horse is a her. An’ my brother’s always just called her Baby. It’s as good as a real name I guess.”

“Oh, you’re a  _ lady _ .” Castiel ran his fingers through her mane. “Naturally. I’m sorry for assuming. It just didn’t feel polite to check.” One more reason it was good that Dean was back at home and not here to witness the nearly childlike joy on the preacher at something as simple as a horse nosing lightly at his hair. 

Sam almost didn’t notice when the cart started to roll off the main road and up the path towards the churchyard. “Oh. I, um… sorry, Father,” He pulled tight on the horse’s harness, slowing her steady plodding. Sam wouldn’t be going into the churchyard. Not if he could help it. “Charlie!” 

Both the preacher and the horse let out a startled sort of sound and came to a full stop.

“You can come up to the house.” Castiel offered once more, looking over the sleek black haunches of the animal between them. “We’d be happy to have you.”

“No, that’s alright.” Sam forced a smile that felt too tight. “We don’t want to trouble you.”

“It’s really no trouble. This is the part of the job that I enjoy the most.”

Sam mumbled at least two more uncomfortable excuses before he saw his sister emerge from the house, arm linked with a young blonde in a blue dress. Suddenly Charlie’s insistence in coming along made so much more sense and Sam swore silently to himself at how he’d ignored the fact that weeks ago she’d casually mentioned that the preacher had a daughter. For some stupid reason, he’d just imagined a small child and let the thought pass from his mind. A mistake that Sam would be scrambling to clean up after.

The two women started to make their way towards the road and Sam couldn’t just stand and wait for them. He’d been raised better than that. Patting Baby’s back, telling the horse to stay, he pushed down his feelings about being within spitting distance of the church and went to meet his sister and her friend half way. It was only polite.

The preacher’s daughter was named Claire. Her eyes matched her dress, her smile matched her father’s, and if Sam had been a few years younger he’d have been too flustered by her to give a proper hello. It, in no way, excused Charlie coming out here like this, but at least Sam understood the motive. 

“You sure you won’t come up for tea?” Claire hadn’t let go of Charlie’s arm, smiling so very prettily up at Sam.

He almost gave in.

“Uncle is making lunch,” one of her delicate hands toyed with the edge of Charlie’s sleeve and it was almost sweet.

Sam needed to remove his sister from this situation an hour ago.

“He’ll hate you.” Claire’s smile took on an almost menacing hint. “He’s always so proud to be the tallest, like he worked hard at it instead of just being lucky. You’ll absolutely devastate him.”

As tempting as it was to devastate another man today, Sam was more worried about what sort of damnation his sister was asking for by charming a preacher’s daughter. Some things were just off limits, or at least they should be. 

Castiel turned from them to wave at the house, and as Sam turned he saw someone standing on the porch. Too far off to make out any details other than short pale hair and long legs. The man waved back, slowly, like he really, really didn’t want to.

“Thank you for the offer,” Sam took more time than he needed to squint at the distant figure, trying to decide if he knew the man or if that happened to be the tall and easy to devastate uncle. “We really do need to be on our way, Father. Maybe next time we come to town.”

Snapping back around to look up at Sam, the preacher offered a faint glimpse of one of those open generous smiles that he’d given so easily to the horse. “You mean the next  _ Sunday _ you come to town?”

“I’ll talk to my brother about it.” He wouldn’t make any promises, mainly because he knew already the exact answer that Dean would be giving and it wasn’t the sort of thing that you say to a man of the church―at least not one who had been nothing but kind so far. 

Bidding her farewells, Charlie held on to the other girl’s hands for too long before following Sam back to the cart. 

Patting the horse to let her know they were going to get back on their way home, Sam shot a very pointed look at his sister. 

“ _ What _ ?” She asked with feigned innocence, clamoring up and taking the reins. “I’m not supposed to be nice to the new neighbors?”

“Not  _ that  _ nice.” This was a conversation that he’d had with his brother numerous times, usually Charlie was a bit better behaved. Not much. But a bit. “We don’t need any extra trouble. Please don’t go getting yourself worked up over one little girl.” 

“Are you joking, or suddenly blind? She’s not just ‘one little girl’, she’s beautiful.”

“Charlie―”

“I could just eat her up.”

Sam slumped beside her, refusing to respond and somehow encourage her further. 

The general population of the town very rarely ever changed. People didn’t intentionally move to these parts. It wasn’t near a larger city, and aside from the mill downriver and some nice fishing in the spring, there was nothing worth coming here for. So the rare, once in a lifetime occurrence of a preacher’s angelically beautiful daughter suddenly in their midst was not something that was liable to be quickly forgotten.  

 

**.:.**

 

It was irritating just how dodgy everyone in Waterbridge seemed to get when asked for directions to the Winchester farm. Castiel had been offered tight smiles and polite apologies and it seemed that no one had any idea at all where the family of brewers might live―which he found slightly odd, to say the least. Certainly, in a town that enjoyed drinking as much as they did, someone would know how to get to the people making the drink. 

If it hadn’t been for Mr. Singer then Castiel might have given up on his plan altogether. But the grizzled old man with his silver-streaked beard had been rather forthcoming with information, and a horse. Apparently, Sam hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said that their farm was a half day’s ride. Walking was simply out of the question.

“This is asinine,” Nick muttered as he nervously watched the sleepy mare.

“You said that you were feeling restless.”

“Yeah, but I never said I wanted to make house calls for you.”

“It will do you some good.” He insisted, double checking all that he’d packed. Once, a very long time ago, his big brother had been a good person and Castiel never tired of trying to help the man remember. “Think of it as a picnic, with lots of fresh air and sunshine.”

Nick gave him a painfully long look before answering with a dry, “Oh, because stranded out here in the middle of God’s wilderness it’s really the fresh air and sunshine that I’ve been missing.”

Bobby Singer cleared his throat, adjusting the bits and pieces of things that he’d buckled around the horse. “And you’ve ridden before?”

“Not recently, no.”

Castiel tried to push the package he was holding into his brother’s arms for the fifth time. “He’s being modest. Nick regularly rode horses and even elephants during the years that he served in the East India Company.”

The old man gave them both a funny look, but otherwise had no comment on Nick’s military service. “She knows the way. Just keep her headed north on the road, follow the river. Around midday, you’ll come to the fork in the road with a burnt oak tree and white flowers, just follow the flowers.”

And though Castiel thought that he’d just heard the most beautiful, fairytale-worthy directions ever uttered, Nick looked pitifully at him, a doomed man walking to the gallows, and took the package grumbling, “Back in London we had street names.”

“Good for London.” Bobby continued to not be impressed. “Just follow the river, and don’t leave the road. It’s easier than you think to get lost in these woods.”

“You’re sending me out there to die,” Nick lightly accused as he checked the footholds hanging from the saddle and swung himself up so he could tower over the other two men.

“I’m sending you to an injured man,” sighing, Castiel wished his brother didn’t always insist on being so melodramatic about everything, “to let him know that he’s in our prayers and we hope he recovers soon.”

Bobby made a sound almost like a laugh before patting his horse’s neck. “And I’m lending you Sarah here because I’m looking forward to hearing Dean tell me all about your visit next time he comes through.”

Even if the look that Nick gave him was heavy with meaning, Castiel refused to waste energy figuring out what that meaning possibly could be. “We’ll see you tonight.”

Grunting something like a goodbye, Nick got his horse going on up the road and slowly out of sight. 

Castiel enjoyed the idea of sending a care package to the injured brother of the very tall young man that he’d met yesterday. It was obvious that there was some bad blood between the family and the church and he hoped that the small gesture could help to start mending whatever had gone so very wrong. But it would be a lie to say that bit of fellowship was the only motive in sending Nick away for a day. 

Bidding Mr. Singer farewell, he took the short walk back up to his home. The rooms were all empty and he didn’t let his pace slow as he made his way through the backdoor and out into the little overgrown garden. At some distant point in its life, it must have been quite a lovely, but no one had been here to care for it in months and thistle and weeds had taken over the plot of ground. There was a low stone wall marking the start of the woods and sitting on the edge with her bare feet in the swaying grass, was his daughter. 

For the past month, Castiel had spent nearly all day every day meeting the people of Waterbridge. He’d baptized four babies and read the last rights over two graves. There were sick people to pray with and sins to listen to―and he didn’t regret his work, but it did mean that he’d had to leave Claire alone with Nick. 

His brother had been a professor at Oxford before being called to serve in the East India Company. When he’d returned home to London he simply wasn’t the same man. Castiel still loved him and very nearly trusted him, trusted Nick more with Claire’s education than any of the other tutors she’d had. But that didn’t change the fact that his daughter had been strange as of late. Withdrawn. Spending all her time with her books, politely declining invitations to visit with some of the other girls around her age. Nick had told him not to worry, that Claire had never been the sort to sit with the other women knitting or gossiping, and her wanting to spend time alone was natural after moving to such a strange new place until she’d fully adjusted.   

It wasn’t until last night, when Claire had been showing him all the things that Charlie Winchester had brought, that she’d seemed like her old self again.

The briefest glimpse of his daughter while she made tea from the tea leaves that the redheaded woman had brought. But once they’d finished their tea, with toast and blackberries and honey, she’d excused herself to sit out back and read until the sun set. 

Nick said she was just being odd like all young women could be from time to time.   

Still, it worried him. 

What worried him more was how it didn’t worry Nick. 

Sitting himself down on the wall beside Claire, he caught only the barest glimpse of the pages in her book before she closed it and held it against her chest. Too fast to tell what she’d been so caught up in reading. 

“Did you need something?”

“No,” he smiled and didn’t comment on the way that she was brushing small pebbles from beside her, ruining the circular patterns that she’d arranged them into. “I was thinking that, since it’s just the two of us today, we could go on a walk.”

She offered him a pitying look, “A walk?”

“Down along the river. Like we used to do when you were small. We can pack a picnic.”

Reaching up to pat his cheek, she sighed. “Papa, we need to find you some friends your own age to go on outings with.”

“Friends? Who needs friends when I have an angel like you to keep me company?”

With a soft laugh, she hopped down off the wall and kissed his forehead right between his eyes. “Let me put on some shoes, you can make us food and you can carry it, since you’re so keen on us having a picnic.” 

He watched his daughter, with her mother’s eyes and his clumsy smile, and wished that it wasn’t such a rare expression on her as of late. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's been sitting done for a bit with me just coming back to it now and then because this has an awful lot more talking and that means glaring historical inaccuracies D:  
> It was a struggle to decide if I wanted to try and use more correct words and slang for the time period, and you know what? Couldn't do it. It's hard to write and hard to read and so we'll just sort of roll with the slightly more modern english words in a weird sort of mix of time periods. I hope that isn't too jarring or annoying for any of y'all and I'm hoping no one really even noticed XD


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to start this off with a big thank you to everyone who's left a comment or a kudos on this story. It's a very different flavor from what I normally write for y'all, so it's exciting to see that so many of you've come along for this journey and are enjoying yourselves.   
> If you've been with me for any other stories, you'll know that the slow burn is my JAM, and I got to say, I'm loving pacing out the 2 main ships of this story as the characters all meet slowly.   
> No spoilers for this chapter before you read it, but I'm so excited for Nick waking up in the next chapter, just sayin * finger guns*
> 
> Special extra thank you to coplins (my delectable beta reader), vegasgranny, diorionn, thethirteenthchild, bookworm4ever, dean_bean, and adVENTitiious. You're all lovely familiar names to me at this point. You guys rock. I love seeing you pop up, and your excitement for these doofy stories of mine keep me going.

The first summer after being accepted into university, what felt like a lifetime ago now, Nick had gone hunting with some classmates. So far north they’d nearly reached Liverpool, they hunted foxes through the forests. For someone who had grown up in the heart of London, wandering through the fog laced ash and aspen trees had been like entering another world. Just south of Scotland, where things still felt old and wild, there had been crumbled stones of castles and old time worn homesteads fading into the misty countryside like half forgotten memories. 

Years later, warily marching through the humid jungles of India, he felt that same displacement. Ruins of temples to Gods he’d never heard of seemed to grow out of the wilds, feeling just as old and natural as the trees and rivers and waterfalls. Animals beyond imagination had watched them from treetops, or danced from their paths, or stalked them at night while the firelight reflected green against their strange eyes. 

And now for a third time in his life that fairytale feeling had settled back into his bones. The trees here in Maine had started to turn. Back in town everything was still mostly green―but the road he traveled now, hardly more than a footpath, was roofed by leaves of reds, yellows, purples, and oranges so bright they hurt his eyes. At first he’d tried to take in the wonder of it, thinking to himself that his niece would be utterly captivated by this little magic trick of nature. But after an hour or two he’d started to feel overwhelmed, bombarded by the colors, and the stagnant autumn air, and the feeling of needing to tread quietly or else risk waking the old forest that slept so still on every side of him.

He tried to stay focused on the neck of the horse, her short brown mane soft under his hands. Everything about America was still alien even after the long month spent trying to settle in, but at least the smell and feel of the animal was familiar.

Bobby’s directions had been simple enough. Follow the river, stay on the road, look for an old tree and white flowers. Only all these trees seemed fairly old, and from his high perch he could neither seen nor hear the river, though he was very almost positive that they hadn’t strayed from the road.   

If it wasn’t the kaleidoscope of colors making him feel on edge, then it was the silence. He’d never in his life been anywhere so quiet except maybe a church. Other than the rustle of leaves underfoot as his borrowed horse plodded along, the forest on either side of them were walls of deafening silence. No chirp of bird or insect, no stir of a breeze. The air was heavy and still in the corridors of trees.

Lifting her head like she’d caught scent of something, the horse’s nostrils flared before she snorted and took a sharp right between two trees with peeling bark the color of bleached bones. 

The fork in the road was supposed to come around midday, however the sweeping branches overhead hid all but the occasional shaft of diffused light and it was impossible to tell what time it was.

“Where are we going?” Nick scratched the animal’s neck and asked in a gentle tone, “Is this the right way?”

She offered no answer and kept up the slow and steady pace. 

Nick didn’t typically argue with females, but this felt like the sort of time to make an exception and he pulled short on the reins. 

With an offended sound the horse looked back at him, her ears flattening slightly. 

“I’m new in these parts and you’ll have to accept a little scepticism at taking directions from a horse,” he soothed, patting the side of her neck, “even one as obviously old and wise as yourself.”

She snorted again, tossing her head side to side, and started back down the path. 

Not interested in being lost out here in a forest seemingly pulled from one of the Brothers Grimm stories, Nick was about to argue until he noticed the scraggly bushes lining the way. Tiny star shaped flowers dotted the greenery, bright white little flecks like snow. 

“Fair enough,” he mused, somewhat charmed to realise that he’d been told the truth. Apparently the old horse actually knew where she was going.

The path curved and the treetops gave way to show wide swaths of crystalline blue sky. Just like that the spell felt broken. A breeze tickled the sweat soaked hair against Nick’s temples and a family of pheasants burst across the road as they chirped and beat their wings, seeming rather offended to be so startled by a man and a horse suddenly bearing down on them.

A laugh caught in Nick’s throat as the unease drained away. He felt like an idiot. Like a school boy who’d been hiding under blankets from nothing more than a branch tapping against his bedroom window. More sounds came to him, like he’d simply woken up―and among the suddenly audible sounds of birds, and frogs, and winged insects, and everything else that one expects to hear in a forest, was a softly harmonic sound Nick didn’t have a name for.   

It wasn’t until he noticed a low fence sagging under the weight of an overgrown blackberry bramble, the first sign of other humans that he’d seen for hours, did he finally find the source of the strange sound. Swaying in the upper branches of the roadside trees were clusters of metal pieces, some small as nails, others long as his forearm, all clattering together in harmony as the wind set them dancing. 

Someone had lined the road with windchimes and Nick smiled at the strangeness of it. 

Though, coming up to the squat farmhouse, he felt his jaw go tight and all humor drained from him. The horse under him was making a straight line towards a large fenced clearing dotted with brown and red chickens that were pointedly keeping clear of a monstrously large black horse. The new horse looked up from where she was grazing and made a sound like a greeting before coming towards them. Nick hardly noticed the animals as he turned in the saddle to look back at the house. 

The front door hung open and the worn wood of the porch was streaked dark as if something wet had recently been dragged over it. As he drew closer the sharp, sweet scent of blood was unmistakable.

Though it set off a defensive sort of reflex in Nick, the horse didn’t seem even remotely bothered. She was busying herself with leaning on the fence, nose to nose with the other horse that stood at least a head taller than her. Nick didn’t worry about tying up her reins, it didn’t seem that she was interested in roaming now that she got to where she wanted to be. 

Unlike Nick, who now that he was here, was incredibly interested in leaving.

Swinging himself out of the saddle, Nick held the small parcel from Castiel against his chest. If the animals were calm then he would bite back his own unease and chalk it up to too long in her Majesty's service and an open willingness to always assume the worst in most situations.

Any kind of hello he could have called out would have felt as misplaced as knocking politely at the open door. Still, manners had been drilled into him from a young age, like any proper Englishman, and he stopped just short of the porch. The porch that obviously had blood on it.

“Charlie?”

“She’s down at the river,” a man’s voice called back almost instantly from somewhere inside the home. “What do ya’ need?”  

“This is the right house though?” Still feeling somewhat surprised by that, he took half a step up onto the porch, mindful of the smears of half dried blood.

“Course it’s the right damn house.” The open doorway was darkened by a man with short hair and blood smattered over a leather apron and over his hands, up to his elbows. He wore no shirt. “What do ya’ need?” 

Americans really were the most uncivilised people that Nick had ever had the misfortune of meeting. He offered a dry, “I’d shake your hand, but…”

Saying nothing, the man regarded Nick like  _ he  _ was the odd one here. 

“You look as if you’ve either spent your morning aggressively making raspberry jam, or killing a wild animal with your bare hands.” 

Glancing down at himself in confusion, a slow, small smile caught the edge of the man’s mouth― an expression that never once needed to be worn by someone wearing that much blood. 

And Nick wondered how he always managed to get himself into these situation. What he’d done to cross Castiel to earn this sort of punishment. 

Meeting Charlie the day before had forced him to form an image of her family, of the sorts of people who would be related to the delightful, yet strange woman in men’s clothing. She had said she had two brothers, but if this was one of them then he was nothing at all like what Nick had pictured. 

With a sharp sigh, Nick politely suggested, “At this point it would be appropriate to try and assure me that it is raspberry jam.”

With a soft laugh the man turned back into the house, talking as he walked unevenly without putting much weight on his right leg. “I’m cleaning a deer. Killed it in the normal sort of way… with a gun, not with my hands.”

The man wasn’t wearing shoes either.

Granted, it was in his own home, and a man can decide how dressed or undressed he wanted to be under his own roof but there should be some boundaries― and Nick felt that he’d be hard pressed to find a single other living being who thought that pants, an apron, and fresh blood was the proper sort of outfit to wear when greeting a stranger at the front door.

“You’re cleaning a dead animal  _ inside  _ the house?” 

“Well, seeing as this is where the kitchen is, seemed like inside the house made the most sense.”

Hesitantly, Nick followed, finding that part of his mind was overly occupied with noticing the freckles over the other man’s shoulders and the very well formed muscles of his back. Forcibly he turned his gaze to look around the home and as he did he felt himself frowning deeper and deeper. 

There were herbs drying over the largest hearth he’d ever seen, and shelves upon shelves lined with handbound books and clay jars. There was also a gruesomely decorated butchers block table beneath a window, the ‘X marks the spot’ at the end of the rust colored trail across the stone floor. What looked to be the majority of a skinned deer was resting there like an offering on an alter.   

“But the mess… don’t people usually do this sort of thing outside?” Nick noted that although the kitchen took up the majority of the home, there was a ladder leading up to a large loft space, and a sitting area beside the hearth. 

“Gutted him outside this morning and hung him up to bleed out,” he leaned over the sink already filled with water and began scrubbing his arms clean,  “but with this kind of heat you run the risk of losing it to the flies if you let it hang too long.”

“Thank you for the lesson in animal butchering. I’ll keep it in mind should I ever find myself losing my mind and buying a farm in the middle of nowhere where I will need to hunt and kill my own dinner.”

He looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow, “A bit squeamish there are you,  _ mate _ ?”  mimicking Nick’s accent on the last word.

Which wasn’t as cute as the other man obviously though, seeing as Nick had been raised at least two social brackets above anyone who would casually call anyone else  _ ‘mate’ _ . He sniffed sharply in annoyance, “I wouldn’t call it that. No. I just happen to be one of those people who think it’s bad luck to dismember a body under the same roof where you sleep.”

“Hmmn, yeah. I guess I can see that.” He pulled the apron off and hung it over a hook on the wall before drying his hands on his pants. There were odd marking on his arms and over his chest but they were quickly covered by a button down shirt from the counter top. “So what did you come out here for, stranger? What business do ya’ have with my sister?”

“I’ve no business with Charlie.” Nick examined some pale dried flowers hanging between fragrant herbs, not because he had any interest in flowers, but because it was more polite than making eye contact while the other man struggled with the buttons of his shirt. “I’m here for her brother Dean.”

“Alright. What business do you have with  _ me _ ?”

Ah, but Nick had been hoping that this was the other brother, because that would mean a second chance to make a first impression where as he’d obviously already missed his mark with this one. To his credit, no one had ever once accused him of being charming. It really was strange that Castiel sent him on this errand instead of coming himself. His little brother would have done a smashing job with this rough fellow here, when all that Nick seemed to have managed was to cock things up. 

“I brought you this.” He hefted the parcel carefully wrapped in a tea towel. “Compliments of your new preacher.”

“Oh, right.” Taking a long second to give Nick a strange look, Dean came over and took the gift. “Charlie said you sounded  _ different _ but I didn’t know she meant you’re English.”

“I’m not―” Nick scowled. “Yes I am English. No. This isn’t from me. It’s from my brother.”

“Brother?” He lightly shook the package as if he expected it to make a sound. “Didn't know Waterbridge was in such trouble that we needed two preachers.”

“I don’t mean ‘brothers’ like in the service of our God we’re united in brotherhood. I mean that the same gentle woman gave birth to us.” 

“Ah,” Dean managed to make that single breath sound incredibly unimpressed.

“The preacher, my brother, his name is Castiel and for some reason when he heard from your sister that you’d gotten your leg bitten that meant to him that you were in need of our prayers and a blackberry pie.”

Dean looked up from the gift between his hands and his grin curled slow and hungry. “Pie?”

“Mmhmm.” Nick decided very quickly not to trust anyone who would grin like that. “My niece Claire made it fresh this morning.”

“Well, then it looks like it is pie time,” he nearly sang as he set it down on the counter and started to rummage through a drawer. “You can keep the prayers, but I’ll gladly take pie even if I don’t think it’s going to be much help for a wolf bite.” Victoriously he held up a small knife before unwrapping the tea towel.

“ _ Wolf _ bite?” Nick asked slowly.

Lifting his right foot off the ground and giving it a small waggle in the air, Dean hummed a soft agreement and began cutting the pie. Apparently it was pie time. Regardless of the corpse on the table. It was as if politeness had never made it this far north into the woods. 

“Mind you, this is really not my business,” Nick saw the smallest opportunity to spread around the unease he was feeling and he latched on to it, “but I’m certain Castiel said that your brother told him you’d been bitten by a snake.”

Dean hesitated for only a moment in his pie slicing, a hardly noticeable hiccup in his movements.

“And while Charlie was having tea with my niece she said that you’d fallen and cracked yourself on the head while hunting one night,” Nick continued.

He watched the other man take out two plates and place on them two generous slices of blackberry pie with a perfectly browned crust. 

Without offering any sort of explanation to clear up the confusion, Dean nodded and said, “Forks are in the drawer left of the sink.”

Back in London Nick would never have been expected to help set the table for a lunch in someone else’s home, but he decided to overlook this stunning lapse in manners. Not just because Claire baked almost as well as Castiel but also because breakfast had been hours ago and pie was very nearly like a proper lunch. 

Dean started eating within moments of being handed a fork. Nick had small reservations. 

“There’s a stinking dead deer on the table. Do you mind if we eat elsewhere?”

Though Dean had looked like a man ready to eat standing beside the counter like an uncivilised heathen, he glanced at the carcass on the table and shrugged. Around a cheek-full of pie he offered, “You want to sit outside on the porch?”

“There’s blood on the porch.”

“God, you’re delicate.”

“One doesn’t eat where there’s blood still drying.” Nick had few but firm reservations about certain things. “It’s unhealthy.”

Motioning with his pie towards the hearth, Dean raised a questioning eyebrow.

Of all the options he had, the chairs certainly seemed the most appealing. Or at least the most normal. Upon closer inspection two of the chairs appeared expertly made, dark wood beautifully and elaborately carved, one made to rock and the other with a quilt draped over its high back.  The third chair looked fragile and like it would collapse under the weight of a feather pillow.

Dean sat in the perilously delicate one without any fear, easily resting his right leg over the arm of the chair and resting his pie plate over his raised knee. 

Nick chose the chair with the highback, and before he took his first bit of pie he spared a moment to appreciate how comfortable his seat was. The wood was cool through his clothes, a pleasant relief from the heat of the day, and the quilt that brushed against his shoulder smelled faintly of whisky and woodsmoke and the forest. 

“You said your niece made this?” Dean pointed with his fork to what remained of the slice he was obviously enjoying. 

“Yes. She’s had a love of baking pastries since as long as I can remember.”

“But it’s from the preacher?”

“You can say he,” searching after the right words, Nick looked deeply into the ashes spread over the bottom of the cold hearth, “he commissioned the pie in your honor and then drafted me to deliver it to you out here in the the middle of nowhere.”

“Well,” a soft sound nearly like a laugh came from Dean, “Sam would hit me if I didn’t say thanks to all three of you.”

Nick waved it off. ‘Thank yous’ always made him feel uncomfortable, especially considering that he’d never wanted to come out here in the first place. He took a few bites of the pie he’d been awkwardly holding and then sighed softly with contentment. 

Dean nodded in agreement and the two of them ate in a quiet moment of peacefulness.

Once his plate was clean and he knew that he should be getting back on the road, Nick settled more deeply into the oddly comfortable chair beneath him, asking softly, “Would it be wishful thinking to ask if any of the hundreds of plants you have hanging here in your home are possibly tea?”

“I met an Englishman once before,” Dean’s eyes were closed and his face turned serenely towards the empty hearth as if he was warming himself on the memory of past fires. “He came through Waterbridge… hmm, maybe ten years back with a few other men, it was just after the War to Preserve the Union. They were on their way up towards Canada. He stayed for almost a week. Strange fellow.”

First off, none of this was getting Nick tea. Second, he hated the idea that from the moment he said his first words he’d been compared to some other son of a bitch from back home. It hardly seemed fair. “We’re not all the same you know.”

“You’re saying you’re not a strange fellow?”

“I’m saying I’d like tea if you have it.”

Dean opened his eyes hardly more than slits. “Kettle’s on the stove. Tea should be,” he waved his hand in the direction of one of the many shelves, “over there. I like sugar in mine.” 

As graciously as possible, Nick took his and Dean’s plates, setting them on the counter beside the sink (not in the sink because it was filled with pink tinged water from when the other man had washed blood from his arms). He set about heating the kettle on the stove before turning to the nearest shelf lined with containers and attempted to find the tea.

Movement outside the window caught his eye, and though he had no mental map of this area, no guess as to the lay of the land, the Winchester homestead had to be fairly close to the river. Coming up a well marked path through the trees was an unmistakably redheaded woman. Charlie’s hair was damp, slicked back, the men’s shirt she wore half undone and only a slight shade paler than the long line of skin showing from her neck down to her ribs. Today’s trousers looked nearly military issued, pleasantly blue with a white stripe running down the outside length of her legs. A wicker basket in one hand and a long rifle slung over the opposite shoulder.  

Stunned, not because Charlie was typically the feminine aesthetic that usually got his pulse pounding, but simply because that there was a formidable and fearless human―Nick watched her until she moved past the view of the window. 

Hardly a moment later came the call of, “Uncle Bobby!”

Nick turned to see the woman stride through the still wide open front door, her smile faltering and quickly being replaced by a look of amusement.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Nick ducked his head. “It’s just Bobby’s horse and little old me.”

“Not disappointed at all, just surprised to see you here, Uncle Nick,” she laughed, dropping her basket and leaning the gun against the wall before striding across the small home. In that awful lack of personal space that americans seemed to thrive on, Charlie looped her arms around his neck and gave him a short but tight hug.

Clearing his throat, Nick lightly patted her back in the least personal way that he could manage. 

“What are you doing all the way out here?” Even as she asked, stepping back from Nick and taking in the stove and his proximity to the shelfs. She turned on her brother. “You’re making him make you tea?”

“I’m not making him do anything,” came Dean’s defence. “If the fancy man wants tea after lunch he can make himself tea after lunch. I wasn’t going to stop him.”

Charlie tucked some of that damp hair back behind her ears, scowling at her older brother. “This is why we never have company come to visit.”

Hobbling to his feet, Dean rose with a grin, winking to Nick. “There are so many other reasons why people don’t come to visit.”

The last person to wink at Nick charged by the hour and he wasn’t sure how to feel about Dean in that moment.

“I’m sorry for my brother.” Charlie shot Dean a pointed look before lightly ushering Nick back towards the chairs. “He suffers from an incurable lack of manners.” 

He reluctantly sat back down and watched the woman push up here sleeves and set about making tea, muttering to herself the whole while, “and of course there’s a dead deer and blood everywhere. We must look like some godless heathens out here. I swear. Mom would be furious if she saw this mess.”

Before too long a single serving of tea was poured into a slightly chipped cup and saucer that were probably once very beautiful.  

“Thank you,” Nick took the cup and pointedly did not look at Dean. 

“Are these the blackberries I brought for Claire yesterday?”

Nick twisted in his seat to see Charlie looking in dismay at the pie on the counter. “We ate some, but her and her father wanted to make a ‘get well’ pie for your brother and his leg.”

“It’ll take a lot more than a pie to fix what’s wrong with him.”

Hiding a smile behind his cup, Nick wisely said nothing at all. The loving animosity reminded him too much of him and his own brother. That smile twisted once he realised that in this scenario that would make him Dean, and Cas would be Charlie. The similarities were a bit too strong to ignore, but maybe that was just the way that siblings were meant to be.

The tea was surprisingly spicy, a taste he didn’t know that he’d been missing. “This is―”

“I know,” she waved him off. 

It tasted just like the tea he’d had back in India, sparking a very rare and pleasant bit of nostalgia associated with those long years abroad. It was a complicated feeling. With his eyes drifting closed, Nick let himself get lost in that small cup of tea that he didn’t know he’d been missing. 

For a few minutes nothing else seemed to matter.

**.:.**

“It’s late.”

“Thank you for that update, I hadn’t noticed.”

“There’s no way he can make it back to town before dark.”

“And?”

“And go with him, Dean. It’s not safe out there.”

“I can’t ride with my leg like this.”

Charlie rubbed at her neck and tried to think. “If Sam was here he’d take him.”

“Well too bad Sam’s gone,” Dean hissed between his teeth. “Because I’d  _ love  _ to see him take that English son of a―”

“Just because you drank too much last night,  _ again _ , doesn’t mean you have to take it out on the man who brought you pie and has politely put up with your hungover bullshit when any normal person would have cuffed you hours ago.”

“And just because you’ve been bewitched by that niece of his doesn’t mean that you have to go and pretend that there’s not something very strange about him.” 

“Mom would be furious if she―”

“Stop it.” Dean cut her off with a soft bark, angry color spreading high on his cheeks. “You can’t just bring her up any time I do something you don’t like.”

Charlie folded her arms and glowered up at her brother who was usually her favorite person in the world. Dean had never been good at being injured. It made him cranky and difficult to deal with, and with Sam still not come home she was left to babysit their brother alone. 

“We...” she knew what he would say even before she made the suggestion―but if they couldn’t send Nick home the other option was, “we can keep him until morning?”

“Charlie―”

“What else are we going to do with him?” She gestured towards the pasture where the two horses were grazing, the tall blonde man dutifully brushing down Bobby’s old mare before he’d put the saddle back on her.

“ _ Sure _ .” Dean let his head fall back against the doorframe, chuckling bitterly. “Is he going to share my bed or yours?”

Which was not the first argument she’d expected him to come up with, but it was a valid one. Luckily she was a fast thinker and the obvious solution came out too quickly. “He can have Sam’s.”

“And when Sam gets back how exactly are we going to explain to him why there’s a strange man in his bed, and how the hell would you like to explain to Nick why our brother is covered in blood?”

“Come on, Dean.” She nudged him gently. “You know Sam always washes off before coming in the house. And really, I’m just looking out for us. If Nick goes into those woods and doesn’t make it back out… with people in town knowing he was last seen coming here, what do you think is going to happen?” 

Dean continued to look less than convinced. “That must be some niece he’s got.”

“It has nothing to do with Claire.”

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow, folding his arms over his chest. “Because Sam told me she looks like an angel. Just this delicate little thing with starry eyes and a wicked kind of smile that could derail a train.”

“Sam would  _ never _ say that.” Charlie would put money on it. Sam might  _ think _ something like that, but he was a gentleman down to his core. The kind of nice young man that parents could only wish that their daughters would take interest in. He was strong but tender, good with his hands, and could read and write in two languages, which was something unheard of in these parts.

“Well, no. He didn’t  _ say _ it.” Dean put his hands up in surrender. “But he didn’t need to. You both have always had the same damn type. I don’t even have to see her to know that she’s blonde and sweet, with big blue eyes that promise all sorts of things, if only you could get her alone.”

Charlie refused to either confirm or deny, because they both knew he was right.  “Maybe I just think I’d have a hard time getting to sleep tonight knowing that I’d sent a hapless englishman to his death.” 

“I think I’d sleep just fine.”

She pinched his side, the soft bit of skin just below the hard curve of his ribs.

“Alright, alright,” the small hint of a smile that Dean was trying to hide meant that Charlie had won. “I’ll go ask our new friend if he’d like to stay. But if he says ‘no’ I’m not wasting the breath to try and convince him.” 

Pushing himself off the porch, her brother began to limp gingerly towards the horses.

With a wince of sympathy, Charlie quickly offered, “I can do it.”

“No. If I let you go you might actually talk him into it.” Dean grinned over his shoulder. “But me? He might really enjoy telling me no.”

Pretending to busy herself with dumping more clean water onto the filthy porch, Charlie watched her brother make his way across the yard, side stepping some brown hens and gracefully not falling on his face before draping an arm casually over the horse fence. She couldn’t hear the men talking, but she could read the body language well enough. 

Nick was declining. 

The ride to town was nearly three hours, closer to four considering Bobby’s tired old mare was involved. Looking up at the sky, at the tops of the trees that were already obscuring the tired sun, she couldn’t do it. 

Charlie turned on her heels, striding back into the house, pulling down the things she would need as she made her way to the kitchen. Valerian root smelled and tasted like regrets but mixing it with gin and coriander would cover most of it. Granted, Nick’s favorite was wine, but any bottles were both down in the cellar or out in the stillhouse and she didn’t have the time. So gin it would be, along with a pinch of white sand, and probably more distilled valerian than she needed, mixed in a small copper cup. 

With what she hoped was a sweet smile, she took two cups out to the yard, passing one to Nick and one to her brother. 

The blonde man offered such a genuinely surprised smile that Charlie nearly felt bad for what she was doing―but it was for his own good.

“A drink before you go.” She folded her now empty hands over the edge of the fence, hoping she looked passably innocent. “Just a little gin. I’m apologizing now for how strong it is, but a strong drink is good before a long trip.”

Nick sniffed the glass, his nose wrinkling a touch before he downed the whole thing.

“I’ll have red wine for you next time,” Charlie promised, laughing as the man hissed softly through his teeth. Glancing sideways at Dean she saw him shaking his head slowly at her, clearly disappointed. He knew what she’d done, and yet he hadn’t made a move to stop the other man from drinking.

“Red wine  _ is  _ my favorite,” Nick cleared his throat, gently passing the cup back to her. 

She pressed the cup between her hands, waiting. “I know.”

“Do you?” He mused.

“Oh, she does.” Dean nodded, clinking the edge of his tin cup against the empty one she held, before draining it in one loud swallow. “Our Charlie always know.”

“Women can be like that,” said Nick with a hint of a smile “My mother was… she…” he passed a hand over his eyes, his words already starting to slow and stumble, “she always knew the exact moment Cas and- and I would be coming home from school at the end of term, an’ whatever sweet we’d been dreaming about on the… on the train ride was always fresh out of the oven when she’d meet us at the door.”

Beside her, Dean made a soft noise and she subtly dug the heel of her boot into his toes to shut him up. There was roughly two seconds where they glared at one another, but it was interrupted by the soft  _ thump _ of Nick collapsing in the grass.

“Christ, Charlie,” her brother managed between a smattering of profanity as he pulled open the gate, limping quickly to kneel down beside the other man. “What did you put in his drink?”

Slightly more startled than Dean, she hadn’t talked her legs into moving just yet. “Only some valerian. So he’d sleep. He can’t leave if he’s sleeping.” 

Dean had his head on Nick’s chest, listening intently, looking up at Charlie sideways. “How much is  _ some _ ?”

“Just… just a little more than I give Sam when he’s been having his nightmares.”

“ _ More _ ?” Dean looked up at her. “Charlie, what’s enough to knock out Sam is probably enough to kill a normal person.”

“He’s still breathing,” she said in her own defence, “and look at him, he’s a giant. A normal dose wasn’t going to do it.”

Dean sat back on his heels, running a hand through his short hair with a sigh. “Yeah, and how were you planning to get this giant back into the house exactly? Or did your masterful plan not extend beyond knocking him on his ass?”

She loved Dean. She really did―but he’d always had this way of poking holes in all her best plans. Like he himself wasn’t the reigning king of the bad choices. 

“You got that buck inside this morning all by yourself,” she made up the rest of her plan as she went, hoping it sounded more confident than she felt, “Nick can’t weight much more than it did.”

Almost laughing, Dean glanced back down at Nick, a calculating look to his gaze before he smiled. “Are you giving me permission to drag him inside by the legs?”

All hail the king of bad choices.

Long may he reign.

Charlie came around the gate and crouched beside Nick, touching her hands to his throat to feel a reassuringly strong pulse. “Can I ask exactly what this man did to piss you off so much?

“Nothing yet.”

“ _ Nothing yet _ ?”

“Not yet. But come on, Charlie. I’ve never seen someone look more like trouble waiting to happen.” He took Nick’s ankles in his hands and straightened up, bearing his share of the weight as he started his list of concerns. “Blonde. Gentle. Eyes the same blue as the sky after a spring rain. And that smile?  _ Ugh _ . God. That smile.”

“You’re missing one very important thing here.” She grunted and lifted with her knees. “All those lovely qualifications aside, he’s a  _ he _ , and not for nothing but between you, me, and Sam, you’re the only one of us who’s ever considered kissing a ‘he’.”

“Have not.”

Charlie puffed, blowing hair from her face to look pointedly at her big brother.

“Don’t give me your ‘ _ I know’ _ .” He grunted, annoyed, not meeting her eye as they walked with Nick hanging like a corpse between them. “You don’t know nothin’.” 

She knew more than she wanted. 

Watching her own feet as they moved the unconscious body across the yard, up the porch, and into the house, she did her best to not look at either men. She already had a head full of thoughts that were never her own. 

Dean wanted a drink. His leg hurting pretty badly with all this walking around.

Nick wanted to wake up. His dreams only a whisper to Charlie. Foggy at best. Memories of a forest with air heavy and damp like a fever, of sleeping with a long rifle in his hands.

Surface thoughts that she couldn’t shut out while she was still touching him.

Mom had called it a gift, always in joking.

Charlie called it a curse, almost always in seriousness.

But Mom had been an optimist, and if calling them ‘gifts’ had helped the woman feel better about what she’d done to her kids, then Charlie wouldn’t hold it against her. 

Three children. 

Three curses.

And as far as Charlie was concerned she’d gotten the longer end of the stick on this one, so she wouldn’t complain.

  
  


 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> screw any kind of update scheduled that I had mentally planned out before I started posting this story.   
> I just spent the last 2 weeks teaching art classes to kindergartners and I now want to curl up in the fetal position and silently cry from exaustion.   
> Have a chapter. This here in the sort of human interaction that I want, talking with y'all about these awful boys, not being swarmed by 5 year olds who keep tasting my art supplies :<

The glow of home was a lighthouse in the trees, guiding Sam through the moonless night. Windows shone like eyes, pale yellow and flickering. Candles were burning, not lamps, and even that little bit of light was hypnotically bright with only the stars for competition.

Something was very wrong. 

There was no ominous feeling that stopped Sam on the edge of the trees. 

There was just the simple fact that there should have been no lights at all. Their parents taught them well, and the siblings were not in the habit of setting beacons for anything in the woods to be drawn directly to their home. 

He hesitated under the grove of maple trees, settling into the heavy shadows while he waited.

It didn’t take long for Charlie to come into view. Sam watched her mash her nose against the window, her faint silhouette squinting into the tree line, trying to find him.

And that was all Sam had wanted, just some sign that everything was normal despite the warm and welcoming glow. He shouldered his heavy bag and made his way the last few yards to the porch. His sister swung open the door, pushing here barefoot through the line of salt so that he could enter. 

Backlit like she was, Sam didn’t notice the redness to her face. Besides, after mumbling a tired hello as he crossed the threshold and found all his attention thoroughly focused on the body splayed out in the middle of the room. 

“Oh hell,” his breath caught in his throat, “again? Really, you guys?”

A messy chalk circle had been drawn around the stranger, four waxy tallow candles flickering at the cardinal directions to help define the edges. Three white, and one blue to mark North that contrasted very sharply beside the man’s tumble of short blonde hair. It was a clean-shaven face, one that Sam did not recognise. There was no dirt under the man’s fingernails, but his boots looked well worn, and speckles of red over his left shoulder stained clothes that otherwise might have been considered someone’s ‘Sunday best’. 

Hesitantly, Sam moved closer, letting his bag slip to the ground as he took note of the dried blood matting the hair of the stranger’s right temple. 

“How?” He demanded, turning to his brother and sister. “Just  _ how? _ ” 

Dean was slumped in his chair, tin cup in his hand and eyes glassy. Offering zero explanation.

Charlie wasn’t much better, though she seemed wholly sober, she had taken herself to the kitchen and was pretending to be busy instead of meeting his eye.

“I’m gone for one day.  _ One day _ . And you two killed a man. Am I really the only one in this family with any sort of moral compass ?”

“Calm down, Samantha. The son of a bitch isn’t dead.” Dean sounded almost disappointed. “Charlie drugged him’s all.”

Sam had no idea who this poor unfortunate soul was, but he was damn sure that the man didn’t deserve whatever he’d gotten. Turning back to look at his sister, Sam noticed the bruising along her eye and down to her jaw, and instantly reconsidered his last thought. 

“Hey, hey,” the body forgotten, Sam went to her, taking her face gently between his hands. “Are you alright? What happened?”

“I’m- I’m fine.” She pulled away, looking more embarrassed than anything else. “I gave him something to get him to sleep. Apparently, it wasn’t enough... and he woke up… and―”

“And Charlie panicked and hit him over the head,” Dean decided that now was apparently the best time to weigh in. 

“I didn’t know what else to do,” she hissed in annoyance.

“You could have, oh I don’t know,  _ not  _ clubbed him with Dad’s rifle?” The way that Dean said it made it seem like this was an argument that they’d had more than once already. “You could have lied, told him he’d passed out. We could have made up some story why he was waking up on the floor, but no, you panicked.”

Charlie ran her hands through her hair, looking frustrated and tired before turning back to Sam. “He shouldn’t have woken up. He shouldn’t have been able to wake up. I gave him the same amount of valerian I usually give you.”

“And he woke up?” Sam blinked in surprise. When his sister mixed him something to help him get to sleep he went and stayed there for at least a solid five hours.

“She gave him  _ more _ than she gives you,” Dean pointed his empty cup at the unconscious man. “And the bastard still manages to wake up less than an hour later, disoriented and confused. So Charlie does him like he’s a ghoul rising up from a shallow grave and smacks him as hard as she can with the butt of the rifle.”

Sam was too tired for this.

Sam would never not be too tired for this kind of thing.

“And I’m guessing he didn’t go down?”

“He did not go down.” Dean got the first smile since Sam had come home. “He, in fact, defended himself against our sweet little sister, and I had to drop him.”

Frustrated, Charlie folded her arms over her chest. “How was I supposed to know he’d served in the military and is jumpy as hell when he wakes up?” 

“Well, Jesus, Charlie.” Their older brother drawled. “How could you have  _ possibly  _ known?”

“I don’t like to poke around in people’s head.” She grumbled. “It’s rude.”

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. “And instead of trying another potion you two decided to bind him in a circle?” He didn’t wait for an answer. The proof of their actions was sprawled in the center of the room. “Do I even want to ask who this is?”

“Oh, you two didn’t meet yesterday?” Dean leaned forward in his chair, the flimsy thing creaking softly under his weight. “This nicely dressed beast of a man is the preacher’s brother.”

Well, that explained why Sam didn’t recognise him. 

Moving to stand at the edge of the circle, looking more closely at the stranger’s face, Sam thought that maybe he could see the family similarities. Claire’s strawberry blonde hair, Castiel’s mouth and jawline. 

Aside from the smears of dried blood, there were angry red marks along the man’s throat. Which was fantastic. A great way to greet the new members of their town. 

“So… preacher’s brother comes out here with no ill intent,  _ I’m guessing _ ,” Sam sank down with his knees nearly brushing the circle, “and the two of you drug him, crack his skull, strangle him, and bind him in a ritual circle. Do I have this all right so far?”

“It was going to be dark before he could get back to town,” Charlie took her chair beside Dean’s, drawing her knees up to her chest and somehow making herself small. “I figured he’d be safer sleeping here and heading back in the morning. I’ve never,  _ never _ seen anyone get up after that much valerian.”

Sam let out a long breath, sending the flame of the blue candle guttering and dancing. He’d been awake for nearly two days now. Two days, and his body felt already half asleep even as his mind struggled to make logical sense of this utter mess that he’d walked in on. 

“Please tell me you two managed some sort of plan aside from waiting for these candles to burn out and maybe choking him unconscious again if he tries to get up.”

“We were waiting for you,” Dean nodded, leaning forward to set his cup on the floor beneath his chair, out of the way. His gaze had already steadied out, focused and clear. 

Sam’s big brother was the only person he’d ever known who could will himself sober when he wanted to; a talent that never ceased to impress.

Leaning back, he looked at Dean, ever so slightly amused but trying to keep it at bay. “And what am I supposed to do?” His sleep-deprived mind struggled to make sense of the silence that answered his question. Though slowly, slowly, it got there. “Oh! Oh, no. You two wouldn’t ask me―I don’t even know him! I don’t want to go poking around in his head.”

“Because it’s  _ rude _ ,” Charlie pointed out to Dean.

Dean looked at them both like they were still little kids, before pushing himself out of his chair to kneel on the unconscious man’s left side. “If you don’t then we can just cross our fingers and hope that he doesn’t remember how he ended up on the floor. You never know, Charlie did crack him real hard, maybe knocked some things loose. We could get lucky and he could just have a headache by morning.”

Even if he wasn’t worn down and ready to pass out where he sat, Sam still would have said no.

“ _ Or _ ,” Dean made an awful lot of significant eye contact as he let that pregnant pause fester, “he can wake up, go back to town, and tell people what happened to him here.”

“Why did  _ anything  _ have to happen?” Sam wouldn’t be guilted just because his siblings made a few really bad choices tonight. “Why couldn’t you two just let him go back to town?”

“Because it’s not safe in the woods.” Charlie joined them on the floor, sitting on Sam’s other side, placing a hand on his arm.  

“Well good thing you kept him here then,” Sam closed his eyes, groaning, “safe and sound.”

“He’s  _ so  _ safe,” Dean hummed softly, wetting his fingers and pinching out the two closest candles with a hiss. 

Sam simmered, anger brewing somewhere because he hated to be bullied like this. 

In contrast with their big brother, Charlie didn’t sound nearly as smug as she put out the remaining candles. “We couldn’t do it without you, Sam.” She pushed her thumb through the edge of the chalk circle and a small but audible  _ pop _ sounded at its breaking. 

“You sure got this far without my help.” He didn’t have to be happy about this. About the fact that his siblings both had some fairly frightening skills, but neither of them could cast or weave a charm beyond anything basic. And even if they’d tried, it would have likely fallen apart or gone sideways without a third person as an anchor. “You both owe me.”

“We definitely owe you,” Charlie agreed, taking Sam’s hands in hers, giving them a squeeze before placing them gently on the crown of the unconscious man’s head.

“And maybe we make a new policy about not drugging visitors,” he suggested dryly, closing his eyes and trying to focus. It was hard when closing his eyes only made him want to go to sleep. “What’s his name?”

“Nick.”

“Uncle Nick.” 

His siblings replied in near unison. 

Sam peered sideways at his sister. “I’m not calling him  _ Uncle _ .” 

Charlie shrugged her narrow shoulders. “That’s how he was introduced to me.”

Closing his eyes again, Sam lowered his chin to his chest, breathing out until his lungs started to burn for want of air. There was where he found his center, a quiet and still place where he wasn’t tired or sore; where his knees weren’t protesting him putting so much weight on them, where the house didn’t smell like herbs and blood and gin. Dimly, he felt his brother and sister rest their hands on his arm, and he knew that they were holding one another’s hands over Nick’s chest, completing a different sort of circle than the one that had been drawn in chalk. 

There were words to be said, old things in a language that had been brought to the americas centuries ago and forgotten long before Sam had been born. He whispered them clean and clear, pulling them from memory, because he’d done this exact spell far more times than he wanted to admit to. It was the good kind of magic, the clean kind that came from the earth, that asked for no offerings, no sacrifices other than Sam himself.

Slowly, he became aware of Nick’s heart beat, of his smooth and even breaths, and Sam matched them. Everything else faded. No crickets outside, no house, no brother, no sister, no faint smell of smoke. 

It was just the two of them. 

Nick’s hair was soft between Sam fingers, his scalp warm, the cut on his temple gritty, dried blood flaking. It hurt. Not because Sam knew that it must, but because he could feel it in his own head. This sharp pain on the right side, a quiet throb echoing their heart beats. 

Slowly, deliberately, Sam took that hurt until it was only his own, stealing it for himself. 

He did the same with the tenderness in the man’s throat, feeling his own constrict in protest, choking his words around the edges. 

Smaller bumps and scrapes could stay. Searching, Sam decided that they’d come to this house with Nick, and Nick could take them with him when he left in the morning. This wasn’t a charity case and Sam would do whatever he could to keep himself whole. 

Taking someone else’s pain was one thing, a taxing spell to cast, but not a complicated one. They were surface injuries, transient, nothing lasting and in a few days Sam would forget all about them. 

Memories however were significantly harder to steal. Sam had to dig for those, and even if he’d known this man it would have felt like the worst kind of violation. 

The grounded part of his mind knew that he was still firmly seated between his brother and sister in the safe and warm single room home that their grandfather had built. But the house that he’d been born in, that he’d lived in his whole life faded away as he fell into Nick. Sam wanted to, he  _ needed _ , to find the memory of tonight and to retreat back to the safety of his own skin.

Every mind Sam had ever touched like this had been of someone else who’d been from Waterbridge, there’d been a taste of familiarity to their memories―but this was different. Nothing in Nick’s head felt welcoming or familiar. It was all a jumble of places and smells and sounds and faces that Sam had never once seen before. 

There was no river here. No forest. No bridge or church or familiar landmark for Sam to get his bearings and he felt lost in a way that he hadn't known possible. Nothing here seemed to be in any order, either because of the poor binding spell, or Charlie’s well aimed smack with the wrong end of a gun, or maybe Nick was just an utter mess without the help of any Winchester. Whatever the reason, the result was all the same. 

In the midst of the assault, of being battered with a stranger’s life, Sam forgot why he was here. He couldn’t remember why he’d come, only that he wanted to find his way back out. 

Sam was in a two story home, walking up and down stairs in the middle of the night while holding a plump baby to his shoulder, shushing her for what felt like hours until she cried herself out. Sam was running through fog, playing tag with his younger brother who could run faster than the devil himself. Sam had a lapful of a young, dark woman, his hands up under her skirts, caressing her warm brown skin while she kissed his throat. There was a boat, the bite of salt in the air. There was hard dirt beneath his back and the sharp taste of copper in his mouth. He was holding someone to his shoulder once more, but not a baby, this time it was a young man in a soldier’s uniform who was coughing blood like water. 

Sam felt like he was going to throw up.

There was no direction to turn in which anything felt right. 

This man could keep his damn memory of being drugged and smacked around tonight. It was his. Sam couldn’t find it, and he didn’t wish to. He just wanted to feel at home in his own body once more. But before he could pull himself back out a sharp stab of pain sung through his head, and for a choking breath he didn’t know if it was him or the other man that was hurting. 

As horrible as it was though, this here was familiar to him. This was one of Sam’s headaches and he welcomed it like an old friend, suddenly very aware of his own body, of the pressure behind his eyes, of the blood running from his nose. 

It felt like dying and Sam was grateful as the unexpected vision shoved aside all thoughts and memories that weren't his own, leaving him crippled in pain, gasping, tears stinging his eyes while the smooth floor of his home pressed hard into his shoulder and cheek. 

**.:.**

_ 5th of September, in the year of our Lord 1872 _

_ My brother left early yesterday morning to visit the home of the Winchester family. We were told that it was nearly fifteen miles through the woods to their farm, and I expected him home before dinner. _

_ I’ve been up all night waiting for him and now I can see the sun lighting the trees. Claire was unworried before she went to sleep. She tells me that there is not a thing on this continent, or any, that Nicholas couldn’t lecture into apologising to him for crossing his path. She may be right. At some point he grew up to be the headmaster of our boarding school and there are times that even I find myself feeling guilting when he gives me that disappointed look of his.  _

_ I wish that I had Claire’s faith.  _

_ I’m going to try and get some sleep before I need to give my morning sermon and I will pray that God will deliver my wayward brother safely home. It is not the first time I have had to say such prayers and knowing my brother it will not be the last. _

**.:.**

“I say we kill him.”

“We are not killing him. Don’t even joke about it.”

“You heard what Sam said―”

“Sam doesn’t know what happened.  _ We  _ don’t know what happened, so Nick won’t either. So we leave it be and see what happens.” The soft feminine voice slowly became recognisable as Charlie Winchester, though that little realisation offered no proper explanation as to what was happening. 

Nick was sitting in a chair, which was not an unusual way for him to wake. His head was throbbing a steady rhythm and his mouth tasted like something had died in it, and yet he couldn’t remember drinking anything earlier. 

He couldn’t remember anything at all. 

For that reason alone he suspected that he might have been drinking.

Groaning, he put a hand to his head― and like touching a hot stove, he jerked his hand back, wincing because he’d been hurt. He’d been hit over the head, the memory singing through him. A strange a disjointed memory and as he caught his breath he realised only a single important thing. 

He didn’t hurt.  

Gingerly he touched his head once more, slowly opening his eyes. 

There was no bump. 

No pain. 

Only slight confusion as he realised that he must have dreamt of the injury, which was sadly a regular occurrence for him. Waking from nightmares with nearly no memory of them beyond a quiet panic. 

Eyes slowly focusing on the room he noticed that he was not in his own home. The massive fireplace and the army of dried plants might have been the give away, and if it wasn’t them it was the man slumped in the chair beside him. 

Nick did not know the man.

Though there was something instantly familiar about him.

Sharp nose, strong jaw line, high forehead stained with a smear of blood. There were also red marks around the man’s throat, ugly bruising in very distinct hand like patterns―and for the briefest moment Nick thought that the man beside him might be dead until he noticed he gentle rise and fall of his chest.  

So, sleeping and looking like he’d been mugged and left for dead sitting upright.

Nick decided that he wouldn’t like to meet the person fool enough to try and mug a man like this. A blanket had been thrown over him, but it did little to hide the fact that he was built like a mountain, with a long spill of legs promising that if he’d stood he’d be as tall as Nick if not taller. 

The oddest thing happened then. One moment he was taking note of the strange thin scars over the man’s hands, and wondering why he’d be wearing such a delicate bracelet with dangling stone charms, and the next Nick was sure that he knew exactly who this strange giant was. 

No recollection in him of meeting this fellow, but a very clear and sharp memory or telling him goodbye. The image so fresh in his mind it was as though it had happened only moments before, Nick remembered laughing the sort of too loud laughter he used when he needed to convince himself that he wasn’t afraid. And the other man had pressed their foreheads together, whispering promises that felt just as hollow as that laughter before stealing a glancing sort of kiss that hardly touched the corner of Nick’s mouth and Nick had been left standing there stunned as the other man mumbled ‘I will see you in the morning’ and every fiber in Nick had wanted to believe what he knew was a well meant lie. 

Only he was positive that he’d never seen this man before today and that contradicting feeling collapsed into a searing sort of headache like a gunshot, and Nick choked on it. Canting forward in his seat, pressing both hands over his eyes to hold in the violently sharp pain, he managed to gasp out a heartfelt, “Bloody hell.” 

A startled sound came from somewhere behind him, followed by a clatter of more than one thing falling to the floor and breaking.

“Christ, does he always wake up like a bear?”

“Sympathy, Dean. Sympathy.” Charlie’s voice chided her brother before the woman closed in on Nick in the gentlest way possible, one of her hands coming to rest on the crown of his head. 

People in England knew how to maintain comfortable amounts of personal space, a skill that Charlie Winchester seemed to be lacking. Instinctively, Nick leaned away from her touch while struggling to find a calmer breath. Looking up from between his fingers he was startled to see that it wasn’t Charlie, but the man who’d been sleeping in the chair beside his. 

He was still in his chair, but reaching out, fingers curling around empty air. In a sleep rough voice he said, “You’re bleeding.”

“One of my many skills,” Nick assured. Gingerly running a hand over his face he found blood between his nose and lip. Not much, but there and looking very red smeared over the pale tips of his fingers. “I- I’m fine.”

“Sam.”

“No. I’m Nick.”

Under all those lovely bruises, the man beside him smiled. “ _ I’m _ Sam.”

“Well, as long as we got that cleared up,” Nick held the back of his wrist to his bleeding nose, shallow breaths tasting like metal. 

Under other circumstances it might have been pleasant to meet his third Winchester. And though, a certain family similarity between the two brothers could very nearly pass for an excuse as to why this man’s face and voice moved through Nick like the ghost of a memory, it was not a good enough excuse by far. 

Something had been shook loose in Nick’s head. Something that had stolen away hours of his life and left what felt like paragraphs of text from seemingly very different stories. Every piece that he could recall had a jumbled dream like quality to it. 

“What happened?”  

Sam leaned back into his chair, shrugging and settling in under his blanket as if he were cold. 

“I don’t know,” Charlie came to his side, gently pulling his hands from his face to press a warm cup of tea between them. “You were getting ready to leave yesterday and just collapsed.” 

“ _ Yesterday _ ?” He turned his head to look out the window in the kitchen. The sky was pale between the treetops and what he’d assumed was twilight, apparently was dawn. 

His brother was going to give him hell once he got back home. 

Pushing himself to his feet too quickly, a wave of dizziness overtook Nick and almost laid him out on the floor. Both Charlie and her nearest brother caught him by the arms, holding him upright while wearing matching expressions of concern.

“Though I appreciate your concern, I assure you both that I’m fine.” Nick cleared his throat, pulling himself free of the worried strangers, only to find that Sam relented much easier than his sister. 

“Do you have episodes like this often?” Both Charlie’s hands were around his upper arm, holding as tight as a steel trap. 

With as many other possible things not quite right with Nick, he was please to report ‘no’. Unless he’d been heavily drinking, passing out was not a common pastime of his. 

Even with his insistence that he was perfectly fine, or at least would be after he walked it off, Charlie mixed up a powder for him with instructions to take no more than a pinch of it in the mornings with promises that it would help his head. 

And that should have been the end of it. 

Nick should have been able to thank them all for the terrible time and head back into Waterbridge with his borrowed horse and his mind a jumbled mess of doubt and misgivings. 

It was hard to worry properly, or to talk to the horse about his concerns over the many hours he had missing, when Sam was walking along beside them. Apparently the other man had to talk to Mayor Roman about something, which meant that he invited himself along for the trip―regardless of how much Nick insisted that he’d be happy to deliver a message and that he’d also be just fine on his own.  

It’s not that Sam wasn’t delightful company. The man was quiet, which meant that he was an ideal traveling companion. Only Nick couldn’t seem to shake the very clear memory of the exact way that Sam’s lips had felt on the edge of his mouth. Of the way the man’s stubble scratched his cheek. And Nick was not the sort to give himself over to fanciful imaginings. He considered himself a fairly grounded person. So this daydream, this uncomfortably realistic hallucination masquerading as a memory, shook Nick something awful.

The fact that Sam kept his hand on Sara’s reigns, his wrist brushing against Nick’s knee from time to time, did nothing to help the mild distress that he felt. 

Back in London whenever he’d run into a problem that didn’t seem to want to sort itself out, he’d lock himself away into his classroom after hours, pacing and talking aloud until he was able to find a way to approach and unravel the issue. 

Having a traveling companion sort of removed his usual option. 

Passing the windchime strug trees, Nick considered asking why, but Sam spoke first.

“Having met your brother, you’re not really what I’d expected,” the younger Winchester didn’t look up from the path before them. 

With the man walking slightly ahead and not looking up, Nick was left looking at the way that the bruises nearly completely circled his throat, purple and red marks dug in around the line of his spine. 

“I could say the same for you,” Nick mused. 

“Dean is… he’s usually quite charming. Everyone says so.”

“Good for everyone.”

Sam looked over his shoulder, an unexpected smile tugging the edge of his mouth, a dimple in his rough cheek.  

Clearing his throat and turning his eyes towards the trail, Nick said carefully, “This may seem like an odd question, but have we met before?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You’ve never been overseas?”

“No.”

“You certain?” Nick desperately wanted a reason for the vivid daydream that hadn’t yet figured out how to forget. 

“I feel like that’s something I’d remember doing.”

“There are times that… that I remember doing things that I’m sure I’ve never done.”

“That sounds like the sort of problem that can be blamed on alcohol―not that I’m judging, it’s just that my family has been supplying Waterbridge with spirits since the town was founded, so it’s something that I know a bit about.”

“Unless you were at the welcome party a month ago, I haven't had any other opportunity to get properly good and drunk here in your fair hamlet, so we’ll have to pass the blame somewhere else,” he sighed softly, closing his eyes and focusing on the feel of the horse beneath him. 

These few hours into town were going to feel like an eternity.    

  
  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was sitting here fretting because this chapter took so much longer than I'd intended for me to write, then I glanced at when I last updated... 10 days. ok. So it felt a lot longer I guess :)  
> Thank you, thank you, to you lovely readers. You coming along for this story never ceases to amaze me, seeing as this is pretty far away from the normal stories that I post (though this is my favorite sort of thing to write). It's a treat to myself, and I'm happy that you guys like it too.

That flash image, that disjointed vision, kept rising back to the surface of Sam’s thoughts. It was the same way with most of his awful glimpses into the future. No matter what he wanted he’d dwell on the moments he’d seen, analysing and over thinking until he made sense of it all. Until he could pinpoint the location, the time of day and year. Until he could figure out why it was important to him. Why it was something that he needed to know. 

Oddly enough,  _ this _ particular memory of future events didn’t seem to be any kind of importance.

Just… just very strange.

More like a daydream or a drunken impulse than a warning. 

He’d never once in his life considered kissing another man, hardly ever women either if he was keeping track, and it distressed him more than he wanted to admit at how his mind had turned traitor against him so easily. Doing as it always did. Looking for a time, looking for a season, looking furiously for a justification.

It would be in winter, when the sun went down too early. But he couldn’t say if it would be soon or years from now.

Nick would be upset in a way that he never was. Trying to mask it with sarcasm and laughter that sounded too tight. But Sam had no idea why he’d ever take the chance or the risk to get to know this man well enough to be able to read him like that.

And shaking, Sam would lean in to kiss this stranger, losing his courage in the last moment and going for Nick’s cheek instead. 

There was no perceived danger, only mild panic and guilt.  

There was no threat in the few moments worth of vision. 

Really, Sam would have considered it all to be some sort of misfire in his brain from too long digging and prodding through the other man’s mind. Except he knew that Nick had seen the same thing. 

Which was the reason that Sam couldn’t seem to shake it all off as nothing more than a shoddily put together mess of images that meant nothing at all. 

After Nick had woken in a fit that morning, and had taken himself out around back to get cleaned up, Charlie had cornered Sam, hissing under her breath that the stranger had the same images in his head that Sam did from the night before.

Most often it was a bit of a blessing how Charlie could open up his thoughts after one of his visions. Usually it was helpful to have a second person to mull over the problem, especially when it was still fresh and Sam was still reeling with pain and shock. 

And then there were times in which he hated the way that his sister could read everyone the same way. It never  _ didn’t  _ lead to more problems than they could deal with. 

There was no reason why Nick would have the same awkwardly private moment in his mind as Sam did. There was no explanation as to why they would share that visions-- if that’s what it was.

Charlie had demanded that Sam explain who and what Nick was.

Sam had known Nick for even less time than she, and the casual stroll through the garden of that man’s head had only provided a jumble of personal past events that didn’t raise a single red flag. 

So, with Charlie’s insistence and despite Dean’s misgivings, Sam had gone with Nick.

Hoping to discover nothing at all of interest and to give himself a reason to write off this man who had an uncomfortably heavy gaze.

In all fairness though, if the same vision of the two of them very nearly kissing was also rattling around in Nick’s head, that might be reason enough to keep watching Sam like a man watches storm clouds on the horizon.

“I don’t feel like you and I were properly introduced this morning.”

Startled, Sam looked back over his shoulder. “No. I guess we weren’t. I’m still Sam.”

“I’m Nicholas Novak.”

“Should I call you that, or ‘ _ Uncle Nick _ ’ like my sister does?”

Nick hummed in amusement. “You know, my niece introduced Charlie and I, she didn’t give me a chance to make corrections.”

“So not Uncle Nick?”

“Simply ‘Nick’ will be fine, unless calling me Professor suits you. I’m aware that I’ve been reduced to teaching children the basics of reading and maths at this point, but I was a Professor once… for long enough that I think I’m starting to miss hearing it.”

“I thought you served in the military,” Sam said before remembering that the only reason he knew that was because of last night’s scavenger hunt through Nick’s memories.

“Briefly,” was the rather short answer. 

Sam very nearly wished that he’d been burdened with his sister’s gift, if only because it might give a hint why the other man suddenly sat so tightly on the horse’s back. 

“What were you a professor of?” He attempted what he hoped was a safer line of questioning.

“Theology and philosophy.”

Out of his siblings, Sam was the most educated, but none of them had ever stepped foot in the town’s school house. Even as a child it had been obvious to Sam that not a single member of their family were particularly welcome in Waterbridge. So instead of proper school the three of them all learn to read and write from their mother, watching her draw beautifully curving letters in the ashes left in the fire until they were old enough to be trusted with one of her few and precious books. It had been enough for Dean and Charlie. Sam had wanted more, borrowing books in trade for spells. Begging them from any stranger who passed through. He’d read anything he could find, from bibles, to journals, poetry, history books, and bird watching catalogues. Whatever he could get his hands on. 

Even still, as smart as he considered himself, Sam had no idea what it was that Nick had taught. He didn’t have to ask, frowning at the path ahead of them, he listened to the man over his shoulder explain in an oddly gentle way. 

“Theology is how people of different cultures believe in different Gods, and philosophy is questioning if any of us should waste our time believing in anything.” Nick’s knee lightly brushed against Sam’s wrist and they both did a magnificent job of not flinching. “Apparently the job description your mayor sent in the letter to my brother was to preach and also to teach at the school, since that had been your Father Richmond’s job. I think that’s the only reason Castiel dragged me out here, just so he wouldn’t have to write on a chalkboard. He’s the sort of man who doesn’t like to get his sleeves dirty.”

Glancing back over his shoulder, Sam smiled, meeting Nick’s eye long enough to feel self conscious about it. Wondering what sort of things could make a man like this try and hide his fear behind too loud laughter. Wondering how long he would need to wait before he understood as easily as he had in last night’s vision. 

“I mean this...  _ mostly  _ in the least offensive way I can, but how the hell do you and yours manage to live in a place like this?”

A startled laugh was pulled from Sam, and he looked back once more.

“These woods, they feel like, like,” with an annoyed noise, Nick ran a hand through his hair. “Like an old woman who’s just seen a muddy footed child she never invited in, standing on her favorite rug.”

Though Sam never would have considered putting the feeling quite like that, he couldn’t deny the accuracy of it. Before he had a chance to answer, or a chance to ask if that was the only thing about these woods that Nick had noticed, he watched the other man’s eyes narrow and suddenly the horse was being stopped.

“What in god’s name is  _ that _ ?” 

Sam looked from Nick back to the road and with a cold sliver of dread became very aware of the fact that he hadn’t brought Dad’s gun along with him today.

 

**.:.**

 

The sermon was meant to be on the parable of the prodigal son. Castiel had spent the past week writing up three pages on how the savior had tried to teach forgiveness― but standing there at the pulpit after having watched no less than half the young men in the town attempting to sit beside Claire, he folded up his notes and spoke on morality, specifically chastity. 

Nick would have gotten a good laugh out of it (because he was a terrible person), unfortunately he wasn’t here today to appreciate the less than well thought out sermon. 

And if Nick  _ had  _ been here he’d be the one sitting beside Castiel’s daughter like usual, instead of the young and bright eyed Owen Mills, and there would have been no need to change things last minute.

It was a mystery how the Jody Mills’ boy had won the obviously coveted seat in the front row. Usually he sat with his mother near the back, beside one of the windows, but it seemed that without Nick standing guard the temptation was too much for even such a pleasant young man like Owen.

Once the closing hymn had been sung, Castiel came down from the pulpit, nodding to members of the congregation as he passed. The small chapel had become noisy, people getting to their feet and talking happily to their neighbors.  

He lightly touched a hand to his daughter’s shoulder, sharing a smile, before walking to the back and sitting in the empty place beside Mrs. Mills. Or more accurately he sat roughly two empty spaces away. Even if they were a widow and a widower, he wouldn’t want to cause any trouble for her by sitting any closer than appropriate.

“You looked like you could use some company.”

“Oh, I’ve been sittin’ alone for years now. It doesn’t bother me,” Jody said like it meant ‘hello’, offering a small smile before nodding towards the front row. A circle of of ardent young men around Claire. “Owen only wanted to start coming to church after you all came along.”

Castiel tried to keep his tone light, pretending that he was joking, though he had a feeling that it didn’t quite come off that way, seeing as he’d never been all that good at joking. “As a father, and as a preacher, I can’t say I’m fond of the way all these young men are always looking at her like they’ve never seen a girl before.” 

“Well, many of them haven’t.”

This fell back into Castiel’s long and sordid history with joking. It’s not that he found Jody’s words particularly humorous,  _ but _ they were strange enough that he assumed them to be some sort of joke that he simply didn’t understand. So he laughed softly and felt even more confused when the woman beside him didn’t join in. 

Jody only looked at him, almost as if she were waiting. 

When Castiel eventually tipped his head to one side in utter bewilderment, she nodded towards the loitering congregation. He followed her gaze and slowly, very slowly, as he watched these new acquaintances of his filtering outside at their own pace, he noticed something odd. 

There were no young women here. Not a single one around Claire’s age at least.

A few women in their mid to late twenties were holding little babes against them, but there were absolutely no girls any age between newly born or married. In contrast there were over a dozen young men who could fit into that age range. 

“How… odd.” Now, Castiel wasn’t an expert on how babies happened. However ‘odd’ didn’t feel a big enough word for such an improbability. He turned back to Mrs. Mills. “I mean, I suppose that explains why Claire hasn’t made any friends her own age. I thought she was only being withdrawn since the move.”

“You’re not going to ask?”

“Ask what?”

“You’re a strange man, Reverend Novak.”

Not an untrue statement. 

Mrs. Mills folded her hands in her lap and looked back to the front of the chapel. “Is your brother not feeling well today? Usually he’s up there chaperoning.”

Castiel frowned at the change in topic, last night’s worry waking back up. “My brother went to visit the Winchesters yesterday and hasn’t returned home just yet. I expect he will be back very shortly.”

Jody said nothing at first, offering no encouraging sort of agreement. Her mouth had become a thin line and the hollows of her cheeks shadowed while she chewed on what she was planning to say. “Reverend, will you walk with me?”

It was a strange and sudden request that he couldn’t very well say no to. 

Their children came along, Claire and Owen walking fairly far ahead. Castiel watching his daughter skirting the river bank as she plucked up late blooming flowers while he waited for Mrs. Mills to say what she’d needed to say but couldn’t while they were in the church. 

Jody was a difficult woman to read. It was obvious that she was deep in thought from the pinch in her brow and the way she kept adjusting and re-adjusting the shawl over her shoulders.

Nearly ten minutes passed in comfortable quiet, and Castiel could be as patient as needed. 

Finally the woman took a deep breath in through her nose, letting it out through her mouth with some force before looking sideways at Castiel. “We’re a small town, Reverend. A small town full of small minded people―and in contrast, you seem a right sort of man. A lot of good in you. Which is a nice change.”

“Thank you,” he said haltingly, completely positive that it was not the correct response.  

“Did they tell you before you came here that you weren't our first preacher?”

“Well, I assumed so. Father Richmond was here before me―”

“There were two others that came here to Waterbridge between you and Father Richmond. And six more between when my husband and I moved here and when Father Richmond came along.” She carefully stepped around a small boulder. “People here won’t talk to you about that, but they  _ are  _ going to talk about the Winchesters if you let them. Our secrets versus  _ their _ secrets. People are always happy to gossip about the neighbors but keep their own curtains shut. I’m sure it’s the same way back in England.”

“You would be very right.”

She nodded, a small smile tugging at her as she watched Claire place a crown of flowers over Owen’s head, the two kids laughing. 

“He’s a good boy,” Castiel noted, knowing that all parents, in any country, loved to hear compliments about their children. It was also too easy to say nice things about a young man who still giggled, and who also made Calire do the same. There was no predatory glint in Owen’s eye as the two collected more flowers so that Claire could also have a crown of her own to wear.

“He’s my third child.”

Castiel missed a step and almost fell sideways. Catching himself, he turned to Jody with nothing but pain in his heart for her. 

“I had two daughters,” her words soft but even. “The first one was born hardly a month after Charlie. The second a year later. Neither lived long enough to learn how to walk.”

“... _ Charlie _ ?”

“Most families in town have a similar story.” She smoothed the shawl over her arms even though it had no wrinkles. “You could ask around, but you’d likely get guarded answers and drag up a lot of painful memories.” 

“I- I don’t understand.”

“You also must not have looked too closely at all those graves outside your home, or gone over  all our birth and baptism records.” She stopped walking, taking a slow breath while keeping her gaze on their children.

“Depending on how long you all plan on staying here, Reverend, you might want to consider being unchristian and start poking your nose around in other people’s business.”

“What happened to your daughters… if you don’t mind me asking?”

“If I wasn’t willing to talk about it I wouldn’t have brought it up.” She continued to not look at him as she spoke. “I only wish I had a good answer to give you. My first daughter, Rose, she was a healthy little thing, bright eyes and a beautiful laugh. One morning she didn’t wake up. A year later I gave birth to another little girl, we named her Martha, and she left us the same way as her sister. I’m from Chicago, we had doctors back there, men who might have been able to explain what had happened. But out here? We’ve got a midwife, and Bobby pulls bad teeth and lances boils, and that’s as good as we’ve got.”

There had been no shortage of doctors in London, something that Castiel obviously had taken for granted because he hadn’t even noticed the lack of a physician here in Waterbridge. 

“Little girls kept on dying, an’ they still do.” She cleared her throat and glanced up at him with a deep sadness in her eyes. “Like I said, this is a small town with small minded people and they call it a curse.”

Under other circumstances, he might have laughed at the ridiculousness of it. “A  _ curse _ ?”

“I know, it makes us all sound like a bunch of fools, but you might be surprised at what sort of old superstitions people are still holding on to out here.”

“Do  _ you  _ think it’s a curse?”

The look that passed over her said that she had certainly considered it at one point. “I don’t know what to think any more, Reverend.”

They walked a little farther, trailing after their children, and eventually parted ways with gentle words and promises to speak again soon.

All the long walk back towards their home, Claire was rattling on softly, and though Castiel considered himself the sort of man who always had time for his daughter he found that he could not stay focused on the things she was saying. 

Mysteries were never his favorite. He never cared for the ‘who done it’ stories where something sinister was always waiting around the next chapter. A quiet and peaceful life had been his goal since childhood, mainly because childhood had been so very strange to the point that Castiel sort of romanticised a quiet life out in the country. Waterbridge was not supposed to have anything more sinister going on than the harshness of its winters. 

“And this here is rosemary,” Claire spun the crown she’d made through her hands, pointing to some thistle like narrow leaves. “We’ll plant some in the spring at the garden gate.”

“Of course,” he nodded, biting at his lower lip as he thought over the mysteries that Jody had left him with. He could simply turn a blind eye. Pretend that there was nothing at all strange about the population. 

“Lavender and mint grow wild in these parts, so it should be easy to gather some seeds for spring.”

“Of course,” he nodded again.

“And I’d like to plant something called sage, but I’m not sure if it will grow out here since it needs so much sunlight.”

“Of course.”

“Papa, are you listening?”

“Yes, my dove.” He smiled and tried to dislodge his thoughts. “You want to plant plants.”

Claire narrowed her eyes and placed the circlet of flowers back on top her head. 

“Mostly plants that grow right here along the river.” He folded his hands behind his back. “I think you could find a better use of your time than gathering up plants from here to bring them a short walk back home so they can grow, but as long as it makes you happy then plant whatever you like.” The promise didn’t look to be pleasing his daughter. “I will say I’m a little surprised by your sudden interest in plants. Wasn’t it stars before this?”

“Yes, but we don’t have any books on stars.”

“Your uncle brought a book on plants with him?” Castiel raised an eyebrow, feeling rather doubtful at his own suggestion.

“No. I-I found one in the basement.”

“Is  _ that _ what you’ve been reading at all hours?”

She clasped her hands behind her back and fixed her gaze on the white steeple ahead of them. “It’s very interesting.”

“Obviously.” There was hardly any interest that she could have that he would not encourage. Her grandmother had spent most of her time tending a rather impressive garden and though Claire had never had a chance to meet the woman, Castiel liked the idea that they could have something in common. “I will see if I can’t find you more books on plants and if you make a list of seeds that you need I can try to order them from Concord.” 

Claire beamed up at him and started a shopping list right then and Castiel tried his best to listen as they passed by the little cemetery between the church and home. He hardly heard his daughter though as he found himself counting headstones from a distance and wondering just how many might belong to little girls like Jody’s. 

 

**.:.**

 

The thing in the road ran at them, though ‘run’ wasn’t quite the right word for the loping gallop on legs that were far too short. For the smallest moment Nick thought of a crocodile, from the wedge shaped head and the way that its body thrashed side to side as it rushed towards them. Only crocodiles didn’t have fur, and nothing he’d ever seen before had a mouth that split open vertically. There wasn’t all that much time to really deliberate on what sort of creature this was as the horse under him started to panic.  

With a quick decision he was sure he’d regret sooner rather than later, Nick slid from the saddle and let the horse stomp and snort before bolting back down the path that they’d come. Hopefully the old mare would make it back to the farm, or at very least get herself somewhere safe. 

Sam glanced over his shoulder and honestly seemed surprised to see the other man still there. But there wasn’t time to explain how the horse was old and slow―not good for an escape and not Nick’s to put in danger. Also, he couldn’t in good conscience leave Sam alone just as there was no way that Sam could have fit on the horse’s back with him. 

And as weird as the hissing, drooling,  _ thing _ running at them was, it was hardly longer than a bed. Which meant that, including its tail, it was roughly as big as either of the men, and two against one seemed like good enough odds.

As if the creature held a specific grudge against Sam, it didn’t appear to even notice that Nick was there. Neither wavering or hesitating it galloped with a single mindedness straight at the younger man. 

Fear and adrenaline made small details stand out while everything else blurred together.

Sam had a bowie knife. 

The creature stank of stagnant water and mold. 

Fast but not agile, it barreled at them like a steam train, knocking Sam’s legs out from under him.

Its blood was nearly black and the dirt road soaked it up as if thirsty for it.

Sam almost disappeared underneath the creature, hidden by all that oily matted fur. 

The stink was so much worse up close, that rancid smell stinging Nick’s eyes and throat as he wrapped his arms around its thick neck. 

Back in India him and some of the other men had wrestled crocodiles with the locals, sort of a rite of passage. This had a similar feel, all wriggling and writhing muscles that seemed to put teeth far too close to Nick’s face no matter what he did.

Sam yelled something, though it seemed to be more profanity than conversation. His bare hands coming up where Nick could see them, grasping at the creature’s head, pushing it away from his own face, pushing it into Nick.

With more of that violent thrashing of muscle Nick was thrown, not far, but hard enough to knock the breath from him and leave his head ringing. Before he could pick himself up there were teeth clamping down around his shoulder. The creature’s beady eye was wet under Nick’s fingers as he jabbed and scratched until it let up and he could do his best to roll away.

He found Sam’s knife in the dirt, oily slick, but very sharp; and though he didn’t know how it got so far from Sam, Nick didn’t hesitate to sink it into the back of the creature’s head.

Resting on his knees, catching his breath, Nick glanced at the other man and asked again, “What in god’s name is that?”

Blood colored most of Sam’s face, some his own, some not. He looked a right mess as he pushed himself up to sitting. “Don’t know what they’re called,” he blinked red blood from his eye, rubbing the back of an unclean hand over his forehead and cheek, doing little more than smearing the gore. 

“Not a real helpful answer there. Thank you.”

Sam spit blackish blood into the dirt. “How bad are you hurt?”

“I’ve had worse?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Really? It sounded like one to me.” Unsteadily, Nick got to his feet, looking down at the dead thing between him and Sam. Without the threat of danger he could get a better look at the beast, and oddly the longer he looked at it the less sense the thing seemed to make. Too many eyes, too many teeth in it’s uncomfortably sideways mouth. It was as if a child had made a creature of their own out of the left over bits from five different animals. “I keep finding new reasons to hate this country.”

Sam made a noise almost like a laugh as he got to his feet. “Where’s Sara?”

“Who?”

“Bobby’s horse.”

“Oh,” Nick rolled his shoulders, testing to see if he even could. “I sent her back down the road.” 

“I guess we’ll be walking back.” The young man leaned down and took the creature by the tail and began dragging it in the direction they had come from.

“Are you serious?”

“We both need to get patched up, and Dean’s the one to do it.”

“I’d rather not if it’s all the same,” Nick mumbled and used his good arm to grasp the thing around the neck, taking half the weight as he followed, wondering if there was a plan to eat the thing, or exactly why it needed to come with them. “I mean, can’t it be you, or your lovely sister seeing to this? Dean… Dean actually seems the most like every field medic that I’ve ever met. Drunk and irritated. I suppose that makes him as qualified as anything.”

“You talk a lot more when you’re hurt.”

“Takes my mind off it.”

Sam looked at him sideways, a hint of dimple showing on his filthy cheek. “He’s not always that way. Which is why we’re bringing this home for him.”

“I mean… who wouldn’t want a hairy crocodile… or hair-odile as I’m going to start calling it from now on. I’m sure it will cheer him right up.”

The hint of a smile on the other man blossomed into a grin, which looked very out of place in the middle of all that blood. “This is the same thing that bit Dean a few days ago. We lit the last one on fire, so we couldn’t harvest the venom sack and-”

Nick stopped walking, anchoring Sam from the other end of the monstrosity that they carried. “This is venomous?”

“It’s slow acting, and it won't kill you, but it’s going to star hurtin’ something awful in an hour or so, at least that’s what happened to Dean.”

“Well, that’s something to look forward to.” Nick wasn’t at all sure what to expect aside from more of the ragged and torn sort of pain radiating from his shoulder, blood slowly and steadily soaking through his shirt, running down his arm to drip lazily from his fingertips. 

Small mercy that it was, they hadn’t gone all that far from the Winchester homestead, not much further than the line of windchimes and the bare blackberry bramble. Not a long way to drag their dead hair-odile, which was nice considering how heavy it was.

Sam hollered a greeting as they came up onto the porch and almost immediately the door swung open, his sister looking up at them with wide eyes.

Taking in the two men and their new pet, Charlie took a sharp breath and called over her shoulder, “Dean, get the sewing kit.”

Grumbles came from inside the house, a small line of resistance right up until Dean realised that his brother was hurt, and then he became a completely different person from who Nick met the day before.  

“No, Dean,” Sam was pushing his brother away after helping Nick haul the dead animal inside and heft it onto the table. “Stop it. Nick first.”

“Fuck Nick. His head isn’t bleeding.”

Though Nick could easily feel offended, he completely understood the sentiment. If his brother was suddenly standing in front of him, hurt, it wouldn’t matter who else was in the room. 

Apparently neither his or Dean’s opinions counted, because Nick found himself seated on the floor beside the window, where the light was good, Sam helping him settle while Dean mumbled and grumbled and collected the bits and pieces of his improvised medical kit. 

Nick’s shoulder had steadily been worsening, from a general sort of bad to a rather aggressive burning that was creeping across his chest and down towards his elbow. Moving it around certainly didn’t help and it must have shown on his face because even though he didn’t ask for any, Sam started to help him ease out of the remains of his ruined shirt. 

The blood had partially dried, sticky and smelling wrong, gluing the cloth over the wound, peeling away like a second layer of skin. 

He wanted to vomit, his stomach rolling and his eyes watering from the pain of it. Naturally he bit the inside of a cheek and said, “Not that I don’t appreciate the help, but if someone is going to be undress me, I’d really prefer if it was your sister.”

“Well, you’re just not her type,” Sam said softly, unfazed and not looking up from his self appointed task. “And you said you’ve had worse than this?”

“I’d show you, but to do that I’d have to get out of these pants, and- and,” the shirt came off and for the first time Nick could see the injury. Under the blood his skin was raw and blackened on the edges as if it had been burnt. “... and I’d need help and well, you’re just not my type.”

Sam very nearly looked up from the shirt he was carefully folding as if there was a way to salvage it. “I suppose you and I can have that in common.”

“That and the matching injuries. Does yours feel like a red hot poker is being ground down into the bone.”

“Sure does.”

It did not comfort Nick to know that it was a shared experience.

Dean set down a sewing basket, a bowl of murky liquid, a clean cloth, and a bottle of something clear, (not a traditional doctor’s supplies) before joining them on the floor. The bottle was passed to Sam with the clear instruction of, “Drink.”

Which he did. One loud swallow before he pushed the bottle into Nick’s hands. It had that oddly piny smell of gin, which was not his first choice, but he took his medicine with a sharp hiss between his teeth. 

Frowning, Dean looked at the two men rather critically before begrudgingly mumbling, “Guests first... I guess.”

“You Americans are so accommodating,” Nick hated how tight his voice was. “Take care of your brother first. I can wait.”

Sam didn’t even give Dean a chance to try it. He took the cloth, dipped it in the bowl, and pressed it to Nick’s shoulder.

There was a woman in the room, Charlie over at the table taking a knife to the throat of the monster that they’d hauled in for her, and Nick had been doing his best to retain some level of decorum. He abandoned that plan in favor of saying every bit of profanity he knew, in every language that he knew.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Dean took the rag from his brother and started to wipe away the blood.

Nick couldn’t convince his body to breathe.

“Look over here. Come on, don’t- don’t watch what he’s doing. Watching only makes it hurt worse.” Sam was talking too fast, or Nick was listening too fast. 

Either way, the words sort of ran together as the other man put a hand on each of his cheeks and forced him to look away from what Dean was doing.

Eye contact oddly didn’t lessen the pain.

But Sam was more pleasant to look at than the alternative. Nick grit his teeth and tried to focus on how cool Sam’s hands were against his skin, or how the younger man was sweating, or how glassy his eyes were.

Or how oddly colored his eyes were.

Like god hadn’t been able to choose between brown or green.

The two of them let Dean do the talking, seeing as he was the only one here on the floor who seemed capable of stringing  proper sentences together at this point. The man wasn’t a field medic, he was a nurse. One of those sorts of ones that lectured you on how stupid you were to get stabbed, all while tending to the injury with the gentlest touch. 

Nick hardly listened, and he was either losing consciousness or his body was going numb, it was impossible to tell, namely because as he had started to lose touch with his body, the pain drifted further and further away. 

“What was in the gin?” He asked no one in particular.

“Gin,” Sam answered.

“What’s in the bowl?” Nick finally managed to look fully away from Sam’s very bright eyes, glancing down at his shoulder to see the skin stained brown and five very tidy lines of stitches. 

“Mandrake for the pain,” Dean was sewing with the sort of perfect little stitches to make any professional embroiderer jealous. “Wine, garlic, and oxgall to get it clean.”

“I can’t feel my shoulder.”

“I’d be surprised if you can feel anything at this point.” Dean tied a small knot and bit the end of the thread off. “Honestly not sure how you’re still awake.”

Nick slowly drew his knees to his chest, head feeling muddled and unfocused, “Should I be… not awake?”

“I don’t know anymore. Somethin’s definitely not right about you,” Dean sounded very near apologetic about it all, before turning to his brother and pushing hair from his forehead as he began assessing and treating his second patient.

Feeling drugged and drunk and battered, Nick still managed to do his due diligence. Tit-for-tat as his mother would call it. With Dean fussing over one side of Sam’s head, Nick was forced to work in slightly more cramped quarters and he took the youngest Winchester’s chin in his hands and spoke quiet and distracting things.

Mostly poetry, seeing as Nick was god awful at knowing how to put together reassuring words, and whatever mandrake was apparently agreed with him a little  _ too  _ well. 

But from behind the glaze of pain in Sam’s eyes a small smile crept out. So maybe stupid worked just as good as comfort. At least on odd sorts of days like this one.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha, didn't see that comin' did ya? Today I'm offering up a bit of mystery, a bit of stupid boys, and a bit of spook.  
> This chapter has a scene that I've been waiting to write since I got the idea for this story, and hopefully you all will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> and always, thank you guys for your words of support and encouragement as I sit over here juggling 2 stories at once like an person with zero attention span, but hopefully most of you are enjoying this one and Stairway to Nowhere, so no one is bummed out when the wrong story updates :D All updates are good updates, right <3

Claire had kissed his cheek and gone to make them lunch, leaving Castiel to either worry where his brother was, or worry over the things that Mrs. Mills had told him.

Neither prospect held much hope. 

Still, one he could do nothing about other than sit and worry, and that helped him make up his mind.

There was no town hall here in Waterbridge. There was no police, or court house. Just small sorts of things that Castiel hadn’t really noticed when they first came here, but nonetheless things that felt strange not to have once he’d realised they were missing. Such a small town, he supposed that if problems happened they were handled out in the open, or here in the church, seeing as it was the closest thing to a meeting house. 

Early on he’d noticed that there was only one locked door in the whole building, and the key to it hung on a hook beside it. Obviously the lock was more for show than any real security. He’d explored the small room a month back when they’d first arrived. It held the things for taking the sacrament as well as ledgers stacked on needlessly long shelves, like someone planned on one day needing a place to store more than the two well kept books. 

Though the hand writing varied from entry to entry, here was kept all the records of every birth, baptism, marriage, and death. 

There was no obvious place to start looking, seeing as he wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking for―other than anything at all that could take his mind off of worrying where Nick might be. Hopefully safe with the Winchesters, just drinking and relaxing and losing track of time in the most inconsiderate sort of way. 

And that was as good a place to start as any. 

He had to guess how old Charlie might be, which was harder than he wanted to admit. His mother had always told him it wasn’t polite to ask a woman’s age so he’d really didn’t have much of a basis to go off of. Maybe Claire’s age, maybe a few years older. It was a broad range. 

He skimmed, finger running over the old ink, looking for the name Winchester, fairly certain that ‘Charlie’ had to be a nickname of sorts, though he couldn’t guess what her Christian name would have been.

And if Castiel had been given an infinite number of guesses he never would have come up with ‘Charles’. 

There had to be some mistake. Castiel read the words over and over, wondering at the strangeness of it.

_ Charles Winchester. Male _

_ Born thirteenth of May, 1853. Waterbridge, Maine.  _

_ Father: John Winchester. Mother: Mary Winchester.  _

 

**.:.**

 

The house smelled like something had died in it, which was not an exaggeration by any means. Things had died in here before, Sam had smelled them, and this here was the same fetid, rotting meat sort of quality. With his head swimming like it had been marinated in whisky, Sam pressed himself up to his elbows and forced his eyes open. 

The room was crooked, tilting and spinning slowly, a very bad sign seeing as he hadn’t even attempted to stand up yet. 

It wasn’t the smell that had woken him, at least he didn’t think so. It was far more likely that Charlie and Nick arguing had been what stirred him from his drugged sleep. 

“Good lord, woman. It’s like licking the wrong side of a sick cow.”

“It’s not  _ that _ bad.”

“How would you know?” Nick had this very precise way of speaking, his words clipped and perfect. “I don’t see you drinking any. You’re sitting pretty over there, feeding me entrails and telling me to pretend they taste like a fine pastry.”

“I don’t have to drink any. I wasn’t bitten.” This was not Charlie’s first reluctant patient. She’d been well honed like a fine instrument from years of dealing with her brothers. “Now. Drink.”

Sam swallowed that cotton mouth feeling, blinking slowly to look around their home and see the three people standing in the kitchen. 

Nick was holding a small cup at arm’s length, back rigid and head high, using his height to uselessly try and defy the little redheaded woman.  “No one should ever have to chew a drink.”

“Think of it as more of a soup if that helps.” Charlie stood looking up at the man, her feet wide and her arms loose at her side. She looked nearly relaxed, if the person looking didn’t know her. 

“It does not help.” Nick made no move to draw the cup any closer, but he also wasn’t attempting to put it down, so perhaps this whole argument was more for show, or a way to stall until he got his courage up. 

Leaning against the counter was Dean, this eager and expectant look to him, because for once it was someone else on the wrong end of Charlie. “I can hold him down,” he offered almost innocently.

Nick pointed his cup at Dean in a very nearly threatening way, or at least as threatening as a cup could be. “You will not hold me down―and if you try you will not like what happens to you.” And with a defiant nod he finished off his drink, before promptly gagging. 

He kept the concoction down, seemingly though force of will alone, then turned to the softly chuckling Dean, “I do believe it is now your turn.”

That took the laughter out of Sam’s big brother.

Which made Sam grin quietly to himself.  

Charlie took the cup from Nick, refilled it and handed it to the next poor unfortunate soul. “And don’t even start with me, saying you were bitten days ago and you don’t need it. The toxins are still in your blood.”

“You sure there’s enough for everyone?” Dean held his dose in very reluctant hands. “Sammy needs this more than I do and―”

“I made plenty,” Charlie assured, unmoved by his generosity, “so drink up.”

“Unless you’d like to fight her on this,” Nick said through a sickly smile, “because I’m happy to offer to hold you down.”

Sam laughed and earned himself a startled glance from the others.

He hurt. God damn did he hurt. The pain threaded through him like a chord from his forehead to his heart, pulsing with each beat. It was gravel under his skin, grit and salt tearing at him in a steady rhythm. And if this is what Dean had been living with the past week it was no wonder that he’d been in such a foul mood. 

The laughing helped.

Seeing someone talking back to Dean Winchester for a change helped a lot.

People in town might not like their family, might whisper behind their hands and give them sideways glances―but people liked Dean, or at least had sense enough not to say otherwise. The eldest Winchester had a way with people, just like their father had. Mom used to say there wasn’t a person alive who could say no to those charms of his. 

Nick appeared to be immune. 

Sam thought he might like Nick.

An inkling that, in light of last night’s vision, honestly scared him―and he wasn’t used to being scared. Stubbornness reared up like a defence mechanism, forcing Sam to his feet. He swayed and stumbled and made his way to the kitchen to take his medicine like an adult.

Dean was choking and gagging, barely managing to keep the drink down. It must have really been awful. “God, Charlie, what did you put in it?”

“Only what needed to be put in it,” she snatched the cup away and filled it a third time. “... and maybe a little honey for taste. Did it help?”

The look on Dean’s face said that it did not.

Sam took the cup his sister pushed into his hands, and doing his best not to think too hard about why it was grey, or why it had chunks, he drank it down. His gag reflex thought better though, and despite his best intention Sam ended up retching over the sink.

“See, this is why I made extra,” Charlie took the forgotten cup from Sam’s hand and refilled it. 

The second attempt went slightly better, and for some strange reason once the dry heaving passed, he turned to look for Nick. 

The blonde had moved through their house, settling into Sam’s chair, pulling the old quilt around himself like it was his own. 

“Can you hear me up there?”

Blinking, Sam looked back at his sister. “Sorry. What?”

“The fever is going to kick in soon, an’ with it some mild hallucinations.” Charlie knew her business. She could fix just about anything if given the right ingredients, but that didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be some side effects. “It’s probably best if we hang on to him until his blood is clean.”  

“How long is that going to take?” Dean demanded sharply, obviously not worried about himself so much as worried about the company quietly rocking beside the cold hearth.

“For you two, half a day or so?” Charlie started pumping water into the sink, clattering dishes and making noise to whisper under. “But for him...a few hours? Five minutes? A week?”

Sam frowned. 

He’d never cared for uncertainties, and for a moment he’d nearly let himself forget that Nick seemed to be made of them.

“Well, we can’t just keep him like a stray animal,” he hated to point out. “He’s got family. They will probably notice that he’s been missing.”

Nick spoke up loud and clear, “He can also hear you all and wonders if you plan to ask him his opinion on the matter before continuing with the worst kidnapping he’s ever had.”

With a slightly embarrassed laugh, Sam asked, “And just how many times have you been kidnapped?” 

“This would be the first, but if it ever happens again I am positive that it won't be as badly organized as this has been.”

“Look here, you English poof,” Dean still looked a little green from his medicine, but his words were sharp. “If we wanted to, we could kidnap the hell out of you. Only I think we’d have too hard of a time convincing your family to take you back after.”

Horrified, Sam turned to his big brother. Disappointment on the tip of his tongue, he didn’t manage to get the words out before Nick’s laughter wrangled it all back in.

“Sorry,” their unwilling guest cleared his throat, looking just as startled as the rest of them, almost sheepishly pulling the blanket around himself a little tighter. “It’s … well, he’s not wrong. You might have to pay Castiel to take me back, but I doubt you would have that kind of money.”

Whispering out the side of his mouth, Dean asked, “Is he already having side effects?”

Charlie put her hands in the air as if she were simply giving up, and returned to cleaning her mess in the sink. 

With their sister’s less than subtle washing her hands on the issue, it left the brothers to silently argue over what to do. It was a conversation of hand gestures and irritated eyebrows. 

Dean wanted to set Nick free to find his own way home, for better or worse. Sam thought that was a god awful idea. Dean didn’t want to be responsible for this mess. Sam knew that they were already past that option. 

He liked to lie to himself and say that this all was wholly out of a desire to protect their family. That they couldn’t just release the new preacher’s brother into the woods and hope that he’d make it back to town safely. Not with a belly full of whatever Charlie had just given them, and not after they’d hardly made it past the property line before they’d both almost been torn to pieces by a nameless monster from one of Mom’s oldest books. 

But as nice and valid as all those reasons sounded in his head, part of him was far more aware of the way that Nick was humming softly to himself while he rocked.

The ache in his head had grown more intense from all this standing and talking, and as tempting as it might be to stand there in the kitchen watching their guest enjoy his chair, Sam opted to lay down before the promised fever could take him. 

He woke hours later, the sky outside the window soft purple. His clothes were stuck to him with sweat, his mouth dry, head bleary, but no longer aching in that unnatural way that it had been. Dean was sleeping fitfully in his own bed, eyebrows drawn, blankets crumpled on the floor.

Gingerly, quietly, Sam made his way down from the loft, surprised to see that Nick had moved the rocking chair from the fire to sit at the now clean table. And by clean, Sam merely noted that it was monster corpse free once more. 

Charlie must have been cooking something, pots and jars and books laid out over the pitted wooden surface, and their guest was resting there, head on his folded arms. 

Sam’s sister was nowhere to be seen, but she obviously had stepped out only recently, if the simmering pot on the stove was any indication. 

Nick seemed to be asleep. The curve of his back rising and falling steadily. 

With that same carefulness he’d used to try and not wake his brother, Sam approached the table and started to collect up some of the more incriminating belongings, hoping that his sister had been working around the sleeping Nick and that the man hadn’t been awake or aware of most of the things on the table. All the same sorts of things that were usually heaped onto the work space, but probably also the sorts of things that didn’t need to be on display for the preacher’s brother.

Books were closed and placed back on their shelf. Mortar and pestle and sickly colored herbs tucked back away beneath the sink, and turning back to the table Sam stilled. 

Nick was sitting up, rubbing at an eye and yawning softly.

“Hey there,” with a forced calmness, Sam came back to the table and tried to move things out of the man’s line of sight. Not fast enough though.

“Oh, these are lovely,” Nick reached out, hand slipping between a basket of potatoes and some dried flowers to retrieve a faded deck of cards.

Sam’s chest felt tight with unease as he watched the man tentatively touching the topmost card.

“My mother had a set with French lithographs,” he mused in a sleepy voice, “and I can tell you that ten year old me was utterly fascinated by those artistically nude figures.”

“Your mother… had tarot cards?” Sam must have misunderstood. Nick must have meant playing cards of some kind.

“She was a ‘spiritualist’, but I’m not sure that’s what you call them out here.”

Or not.

The other man gingerly lifted the deck and leafed through. “The occult was very big back home. Mum would do readings for other women. They’d have seances and commune with the spirits―as all fashionable women do, naturally.”

Sam was too stunned to respond. 

“She taught me how to use them,” Nick shuffled the cards so gently, almost respectfully. “I think she was hoping that I had more interest in the spiritual aspect of things and less interest in the artwork.”

“How you say it I’m guessing it was the latter.” Sam felt utterly confused by this man. 

“Mostly yes,” Nick’s very blue eyes seemed oddly warm. Maybe that promised fever, maybe something else all together. “But there was always something strangely satisfying in making stories for people out of the cards.”

Sam wouldn’t know. He’d never had any knack for giving readings. He knew what the images meant, and he understood the idea of using a focus, but he simply wasn’t sensitive in the right ways to use the cards. All he ever saw were the pictures and he’d never felt all that confident in how they read.

“Here,” Nick yawned, rolling his shoulders as he spread the cards out face down between them. “Pick one and flip it over.”

Curiosity made Sam follow the order and he skimmed his fingers back and forth over the blank backs, touching each before selecting one.

Pulling it from the deck he flipped over The Wheel card, and looked expectantly at the other man to see if they both read it with the same sorts of meaning. 

“Oh, looks like there will be some big changes in your life soon.” Nick’s voice had dropped to a story teller’s whisper as he tapped the single face up card. “Now shuffle the rest around, get your aura on them.”

“My aura?” Sam chuckled and did as he was told. He’d never seen this step before, but liked to think that things might be done a little differently overseas, or that Nick was simply having fun with it.

“ _ Shh _ , this is very serious.” The other man took back the cards and straightened them between his hands. He took the top card and laid it down beside the one Sam had already turned. “See, now this was always my favorite card. The Lovers. My mother’s cards were a bit more explicit than your set, but still.”

Sam looked dubious at his own fate and had some severe reservations on how this was starting off.

Turning the next card, Nick nodded solemnly. “Ah, how unfortunate. See this here? This is The Fool. Which means that you will soon find yourself in love with an idiot. Sorry about your bad luck.”

“That’s not what it means.”

“Who’s doing the reading here, me or you?”

“You, but―”

“Accept your fate,” that stage whisper came back, and Nick’s fingers spidered in the air for a moment. “The cards cannot lie.”

Sam rubbed his forehead, going over the old memories of his brother trying to teach him the meanings of the different pictures. “Couldn’t it all mean that I’ll make a reckless decision in one of my relationships?  And isn’t The Wheel supposed to be a  _ good  _ turning point when it’s right side up like this?”

“Fine.” Nick glanced at Sam, frowning at the correction. “Have it your way. You will fall for a reckless fool,  _ but  _ it won’t be so bad. Is that better?”

“No,” Sam complained, hating that so much of the cards was up to the interpretation of the reader. He could see where the other man was getting his prediction, but at the same time it wasn’t particularly promising. In hopes of distracting Nick and veering away from this awful fate, Sam asked, “How’s your shoulder feeling?”

“It hurts,” Nick collected back up the cards with some reverence, for all his teasing and joking it was obvious that they meant something to him. “But it’s only my shoulder. That poison your sister gave us seems to have helped.”

“Any fever? Hallucinations?”

He gently set the cards back where he’d found them, running a hand through his hair before looking up. “Awful fever dreams. Your sister set me up here with some tea that helped clear my head… she’s a good woman.”

Sam wasn’t sure he’d ever heard anyone say that about Charlie before, though he agreed with all his heart, and he found a gentle smile tugging at him. Feeling rather awkward about it, he tried to catch himself― maybe a little too late though, seeing as Nick had offered up a hesitant smile of his own. 

He’d know this man less than a day, and already things were going terribly.

 

**.:.**

 

Papa had left over an hour ago to go find her uncle. Claire looked from the clock back down to the mostly forgotten book in her hands. She’d never been left alone before. Not really. There were times, after Uncle Nick had been sent to India, when her father had to do church things, but there had always been a maid in the house or the sound of neighbors next door. The little white house on the hill had no neighbors aside from the ones buried out front. 

She’d almost say she was nervous, except ladies didn’t get nervous. So she was restless (a far more feminine ailment if she had to pick one), and Papa had always said that tea and honey were the perfect thing to ease a restless mind. 

With the kettle set boiling on the stove she returned to her book. Dried leaves and an occasional feather had been tucked between the pages as bookmarks. Some added by Claire, some had been compliments of the original owner. Near the back, marked with a red cardinal feather were simply drawn moon phases and small notes about what to plant and what to harvest during specific times. More of a personal distraction than anything else, Claire went to the window and peered up at the swiftly darkening sky. It looked like a waxing crescent moon (at least to her best guess). It was supposed to be a time of growth and change. The book also said that in early autumn there would be mushrooms growing on the north bend of the river, which would be exceptionally good to help with sleeplessness or nerves. 

Flipping back to the front half of the book she looked at the delicate map that had been drawn out. The northern bend was marked just beyond the bridge, right before the forest. 

Determined, Claire took the kettle from the stove and set it aside. Tea could be later. For right now she thought she might have found a more distracting task while she waited for her family to return home. 

With book and a basket in hand, the warm evening breeze blowing little wisps of hair against her cheeks, she strode confidently up the road to where the tree line started. Lights were starting to come on in town, windows shining softly in the failing light. The soft smell of fires burning and dinner cooking mingled with the smells of autumn leaves. It was nothing at all like London. All Claire could really hear was the rush of the river and the occasional call of a startled bird. No carriages, no happy groups of people talking as they walked down paved streets. Just the quiet of nature.

And after a full month here, she still sort of hated it.

Gripping the little book more tightly, she smiled to herself. At least she’d found one interesting thing in this boring provincial town.  

Her boots sank into the soft dirt along the river’s edge and she defiantly kept her footing as she peered between ferns and tree trunks looking for the mushrooms that she’d seen drawn in the book. They certainly weren’t the easiest things to find under the heavy shadows of trees and it was nearly full dark out by the time she discovered her first one. 

Dropping the spongy little thing into her basker, Claire was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of nostalgia. Her and Uncle had taken a summer trip to the country a few years back, spending most of the day picking berries and mushrooms, and then spending the evening train ride back to London bemoaning their sunburnt cheeks. 

With a soft sigh she pushed aside more ferns just as she pushed aside the worry at the two days now that Uncle had been missing. Papa could find him. Papa  _ would  _ find him, just like when Uncle had returned from India but hadn’t come home. They’d received letters from him, and from his commanding officers, about his discharge, but Nick hadn’t gotten off the train at the railway station with the other soldiers. Still, Papa found him and brought him back home.

It’s what he did. 

Claire had faith in her father.

She moved through the trees, keeping the river to her left so she wouldn’t get lost in the dark, slowly but surely more mushrooms being added to her basket. There was something meditative about the search and that white noise of the flowing river, a quiet peace that snapped the instant a noise broke the relative quiet. 

Soft but persistent was a strained breath and a splashing that did not mix right with the gentle flow of the river.

Biting her tongue, Claire put a hand over her mouth and looked towards the water. She wasn’t sure why, but her mind chose that moment to replay their arrival in town, when she’d first met Charlie and the woman had spoken of bears and wolves out in the woods―animals that an unarmed young lady like Claire was in no way ready to face at that particular moment. 

The desire to turn and run home was strong, to get to the cabinet where her uncle’s service pistol was kept, but her eyes caught movement along the river bank and Claire couldn’t take a single step. 

Crouched low, bent over the water’s edge was a figure. 

Not a wolf or a bear.

It was a man.

A man holding something below the water’s surface. 

Something that was struggling against him.

It was past time for Claire to be headed back home. Whatever this was here didn’t concern her, of that she was certain. The loamy soil seemed to rise up to meet her, gripping her boots and slowing her retreat.

“Miss Novak?”

She froze in place. 

“It’s rather late to be out for a walk.”

The wicker basket handle creaked softly in her hands as Claire hesitantly looked over her shoulder. “...Mister Roman?”

Slowly, the mayor stood, drying his hands on his pant legs as he walked towards her. “The river is rather low this time of year and the banks are steep in places.”

“I-I was just gathering mushrooms.”

“Oh?” He smiled warmly as he rolled down his shirt sleeves. “Please be careful which ones you’re picking. Some can be quite poisonous.”

“Of course.” She knew that. Even if not for the notes in her little book, she’d learned all about that when Uncle had taken her to the woods all those summers ago. He’d taught her to be careful and she could nearly hear his voice now, that soft warm way of speaking that he had when he would warn her against dangers far greater than inedible plants. “I think I have enough. I was just headed back home.”

“Please, let me walk with you. I don’t think I’d sleep well tonight worrying myself over if you made it home safely.” 

“I think I can make it just fine,” she smiled carefully, “but thank you, sir.” 

“It’s no trouble.” He gently set fingertips to her elbow, not holding her, but  _ very _ firmly guiding her along the river bank, back the way she’d come from. “I’m sure your father wouldn’t want you out here alone; there’s all sorts of dangers in these woods at night.”

Claire kept her eyes fixed forward as they walked side by side, determined not to trip on any rocks or roots. That nervousness over Uncle not returning home had been replaced by a similar but far more intense sort of feeling. “Were you... out fishing, sir? Back in London my uncle and his friends would sometimes go fishing at night.”

The man chuckled softly, a happy, friendly sound. “I didn’t know that your uncle enjoys fishing too. Perhaps I’ll have to invite him out to join me some night.”

“He’d like that,” she lied with that same smile. Her uncle didn’t like making new friends. Like her father, he was something of a hermit. “I think he’s been missing home.”

“I’m sure that this move has been hard on all of you.”

Claire stumbled slightly and winced as Mr. Roman caught her arm. 

“T-thank you.” She carefully smoothed her hands over her dress as an excuse to pull away from him. She couldn’t say why but she really didn’t want him holding on to her. Looking up with what she hoped was a grateful sort of smile, she nodded and started walking again, wanting to get out of the trees and back onto the road. 

“Here, let me carry that for you,” and Mr. Roman took her basket in a very gentlemanly sort of way. “My, your night’s hunting trip seemed to have been quite fruitful.”

“I just got lucky.”

“Still. It can’t be easy to see things in the dark.”

His words sounded almost like a question to Claire. A question that she wasn’t sure how to answer, “Most of them I found before the sun set. Even with the moon out it’s very dark,” but a lie felt best.

“You should have turned back before it got this dark. Like I said, these woods can be very dangerous at night, especially for a young lady.” He made an approving sound in the back of his throat, “ah, here’s the road. And there’s home.”

“Thank you again, sir.” Claire took the handle of her basket but the man didn’t loosen his grip. “I can find the rest of the way on my own.” 

“I don’t see any lights left on for you,” he said in that oddly questioning way.

“Papa must have gone to bed,” a lie that surprised Claire. Her father wasn’t home. He’d left hours ago and she didn’t know when he would return. 

“It  _ is  _ late,” the mayor agreed with one of those gentle smiles of his.

“Yes… I’m quite tired myself. I should head to bed soon I think.”

“Of course.” Mercifully, he let go of her basket. “Good night, miss Novak.”

“Good night, sir.” She nodded in a small sort of curtsy before turning on her heels and walking quickly back up the dirt road, winding through the neat rows of head stones because it was more direct than skirting the graveyard, and into the little white house. 

It was very dark and very quiet inside. 

Shaking, Claire gripped her basket to her chest as she let out a noisy breath and closed her eyes tightly. 

“Get a hold of yourself.” Her instructions to herself sounded so loud in the empty house. 

Stubbornly she slowed her breath and forced her body to remember how to be calm―and setting the basket of mushrooms on the table, she turned to peek out the little window beside the front door. 

For some strange reason she’d expected to see Mr. Roman still standing out there on the road, but it was all just empty, peaceful night.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always I sit and debate after I've finished a chapter if it's the right time to post it. sittin' over here looking to see the date I last updated, frowning a lot.   
> then I reminded myself that y'all don't mind if it's only been a week-ish since I last put up a chapter of a different story. Because as someone who reads I can honestly say I've never seen an update and been all 'noooo not another chapter of this story that I like'. That's just not how things work.   
> So here you are, a slightly more intense chapter than I'd set out to make XD 
> 
> Thank you always to my competent editor coplins, who I probably keep a little too on her toes with my exciting late night typing typos   
> and thank you to everyone who's been reading along. I love your comments and your excitement about what's happening each chapter. I'm glad that we get to have this adventure together.

The buttons on Claire’s dress were fake pearl, the shine mostly worn off after too many years of buttoning and unbuttoning. It was her favorite dress, just as it supposedly had been a favorite of her mother’s. It matched the blue of their eyes. As Claire carefully hung it up in the closet she imagined her her mother doing the same. Papa never talked about her, but Uncle would tell her stories if she begged. Mum probably would have known what to do here alone in this empty house. Claire imagined that the woman wouldn’t have been afraid to get ready to go to sleep knowing that there was no one else here, so that was the confidence she tried to match. 

Nightgown on, she sat at the foot of her bed and started to brush out her hair, finding brittle bits of leaves that much have caught on the strands while she’d been wandering through the trees earlier. There was an attempt at humming while she brushed, but the sound caught in her throat as an odd rustling outside the window caught her attention. 

Back in London they’d had a cat who saw to the mice, but out here they’d yet to find an adequate way to control the pests. In the last month Claire had learned to recognise the soft rusting in the walls or from the attic above. Nothing more than just a general annoyance. This was definitely not that noise. It was something much larger.

Beyond the shuttered windows the moonlight shifted faintly as someone walked past. 

Excitement never had a chance to bloom in the hope that it was her Papa or Uncle outside. The bedroom window faced away from the road, pointed out towards the forest, and there was no reason that they would be coming home through the woods instead of by the road.

Blowing out her candle, Claire sat in darkness and tried not to breathe too loudly. 

There had been burglars back in London. Stories of night stalkers coming in through the windows while people were sleeping. But this wasn’t London. This was a small town and for whatever reason the idea of anyone here breaking into a home out here was completely unreasonably. 

But if it wasn’t a thief, who would have reason to move around outside this time of night?

Claire listened, straining her ears to hear any more movement. Nothing other than the wind gently whispering beyond her window. Sighing softly, about ready to convince herself that she was really starting to lose it, Claire stood and went to go find a match to relight the candle. 

Opening and closing kitchen drawers in the dark, a prickling tickling feeling started up the base of her neck. Uneasily, she looked at the window over the sink. Trees and stars looked back at her. Chiding herself and feeling every bit like a paranoid woman from the stories of Poe, she settled her hand on the match box and took it back to the bedroom. 

Before she could light the candle there was a distinctive clatter on the other side of her shuttered window, as if a bird had flown into the slats. 

A short startled scream burst from Claire’s throat. She slapped both hands over her mouth and laughed nervously at herself and how silly she felt―but the soft giggle turned to a whimper as the noise came again. Far more insistent this time. Definitely not a bird. No moon light made it through the cracks as the shutters visibly shook like someone was trying to pry them open. And just as suddenly as it had started, the noise stopped, only to be replaced by a winded sort of animal breath. A throaty noise. 

Shaking, Claire watched the window pane fogging with the breath, high above her head.

Even though standing in the middle of the room with a hammering heart seemed like all she was capable of doing, fear was an unparalleled motivator. Without even deciding on the course of action, Claire found herself tugging Uncle’s trunk from beneath the second bed and popping the latch. Down near the bottom she found his military firearms. 

The pistol was heavy in her very unsteady hands. Clumsily she chambered the bullets, trying not to worry how the ammunition box was nearly empty now.

Light fell over her, dim but horrifyingly noticeable as whatever had stood outside her window moved away. Only to be shortly followed by the sound of shattering glass from the direction of the kitchen.

The rifle was much heavier than the pistol, which felt safer somehow, but with frustration she realised that she had no idea how to load it. The slide latch shifted weakly under her hands, but wouldn’t open. 

More glass breaking, followed by a scrambling scratching sort of sound. 

Leaving the rifle behind in a mad rush, Claire took the loaded pistol and ran.

 

**.:.**

 

The sun had hardly reached the sky by the time Nick left Sara the horse in the yard behind Bobby Singer’s place. Perhaps he’d left the Winchester farm earlier than necessary, and taking the foggy road in the predawn darkness had certainly given him a few second thoughts―but it had also reminded him of home. Autumn had full hold of those woods, gentle rain falling in the darkness and a promise of a bitter chill before the month was out. Summer still clung stubbornly to the city though, and as Nick walked from the Singer’s back over the river, that warm morning light peeking through the clouds dried his hair and the jacket that Charlie had placed over his shoulders before he left their home hours back.

Lights were coming on around the few homes clustered in the town center, people waking for the morning, after all, there were chickens to feed, cows to milk, breakfast to be had before people headed off to the flour mill for a day’s work. Nick hated every facet of it. He’d trade just about anything to be back in London, in a proper city. 

There was only darkness behind the windows of the little white house behind the church. He’d been gone nearly two whole days when he’d only meant to be away for hours. It felt slightly insulting that his family wasn’t waiting up for him with worry. 

The front door was locked.

And he could wait, or he could wake his family.

If it had been only Castiel inside he would have set to banging his fist against the door, but it wouldn’t be fair to wake Claire so early in the day. 

Nick sat himself down on the porch and let himself find some of the rest he’d put off that morning in favor of returning home. 

Judging by the change in light and the increased movement in town, Nick estimated that he’d slept for nearly two hours. Scratching his jaw and yawning deeply he pulled himself to his feet and looked into the windows beside the door. 

It wasn’t like his brother to sleep in. Castiel would usually be up by now, clattering his way through making a pot of tea for breakfast. The kitchen was empty, at least the sliver of it that he could see through the window. 

Frowning, he knocked at the door. “Claire? Cassy?”

Sudden, hurried footsteps could be heard before the lock rattled, the door flung open, and his niece was throwing her arms around him.

“Oh,” was all he managed to say because he’d in no way expected such an intense homecoming. Very gently he took her by the elbows and stepped back, smiling until he noticed her dirty nightgown and his service pistol was gripped tightly in her left hand. Looking into her face he saw only fear. 

“It’s just me. It’s fine.”

“There were noises last night, something outside, and I-I-I thought Mr. Roman had come back. But it wasn’t―it wasn’t him. I think it followed me back from- from when I went to get mushrooms. The book, it said that they would help―”

He hushed her softly. Doing his best to sooth the scattered sounding ramble. Very carefully he took the firearm, unloading the bullets, tucking them into a jacket pocket followed by the gun, and then pulling Claire tightly to his chest. Nick didn’t know what was wrong, but he didn’t need to ask right now. 

“I’m here. Nothing’s going to hurt you. Come on. Come on, this way.” He lead her to the kitchen, boots crunching on broken glass scattered across the floor, a gentle breeze coming through the cracked window. Though concern was holding him a little too tightly, Nick pressed it down. Worrying would only upset Claire more. 

Guiding her to a chair, he smoothed his hands over her loose hair, before cupping her face and promising, “You’re safe now.”

She only looked up at him doubtfully.

The kettle sat cold on the table, no one had used it yet today, and with a single minded focus he set it on the stove to heat. Whatever nerves had been rattled here could only be eased with a good pot of tea, and then they could sort out what had happened. “Where’s your father?”

“He’s not with you?” Claire’s voice trembled.

Nick turned back to face her.

Why in god’s name would Castiel be with him?

A question that he kept to himself as he once more hushed the young girl, smiling a perjury of a smile, “We’ll get it sorted out, dove. Don’t worry.”

He got Claire set up with tea in her favorite cup, as well as some bread and honey, kissing her head before going back to the bedroom to get into clean clothes. It was warm enough in the hose that he’d wanted out of this jacket, but he also knew that his shirt was bloody and torn from the incident yesterday. Seeing his niece’s state of mind, Nick thought it best to spare her the explanation of what had happened to him, at least until they got all this other mess sorted out. 

Not able to help noticing, he paused when he saw his trunk pulled from beneath the bed and all his things scattered across the floor. His rifle was on Claire’s pillow, shells dumped from their box along with the box of smaller bullets for the pistol, all mixed together in something that spoke only of the worst sort of panic. 

When he returned to the kitchen he saw that Claire hadn’t moved. She stared out at the kitchen window, her wide eyes nearly as pale as her face. The teacup was still sitting on its saucer and the food untouched.

Nick knelt on the floor beside her, careful of the glass, his hands fitting firmly over hers. Ignoring the way she shook he repeated, “You’re safe now. Whatever happened, you’re safe. Alright?”

Her nod seemed reluctant at best. 

“You want to have your breakfast and then tell me what happened?”

She nodded again.

“Alright.” Nick kissed the back of her hands before settling them around her teacup.

He’d eaten on the road, a small meal packed by Charlie who’d refused to let him leave without it. So all Nick had to do for himself was make a small cup of tea and wait. 

Even after Claire finished the last few crumbs of breakfast, she remained uneasy. Nick watched her making small fists in the front of her dress, twisting and untwisting the cloth. Finally she asked, “Where is Papa?”

Nick took his eyes from his niece’s hands. “Did he go to the church?”

She shook her head, clearing her throat and tucking hair behind her ears as she spoke in short, sharp sentences. “He left. Yesterday. To go find you.”

Smiling tightly, Nick held in every word that he wanted to say in response. 

For someone so smart, his brother really was an idiot. The kid left to fend for herself, jumping at shadows all night, shooting out their kitchen window.

Claire folded and unfolded her hands before taking hold of her dress once more. Visibly collecting herself. 

“It’s alright to feel scared at being alone for the first time,” Nick eased. “Especially with the window breaking. It must have been very loud.” 

The fear went right out of her as she squared her shoulders and narrowed her eyes. Something that they’d never told Claire was how she had her mother’s temper. “Don’t be condescending, Uncle. There was something outside.”

“Like a racoon or a fox?” Nick half joked, only because Claire needed something to focus on other than whatever fright she’d had the night before. Let her be angry at him if it helped.

She got to her feet, walking to the kitchen door, and unlocking the latch. 

Nick wasn’t sure what he expected to see out there, because what there was was a whole lot of nothing. Just the overgrown garden and, beyond that, trees. As he stood and made his way to Claire he felt his footsteps slow, his eyes going wide when he saw the door.

Something had been trying to get in. Something significantly stronger than a fox or raccoon.

The door was pitted with long claw marks, the wood splintered and cracked. 

“What did this?”

“I don’t know,” she let out a shaking breath and folded her arms. 

“You didn’t see it?”

“No. I took your gun and went to the basement.”

He nodded sharply before leaning down to press a kiss to her hair. “Good girl.”

“Can you show me how to load the rifle?”

Nick could just barely make out footprints in the dirt. Too big to be a dog’s―but he wasn’t a hunter so he was only guessing wildly when he decided that it must have been a bear. Though the only ones he’d ever seen had been in drawings, so there was no accounting for what size they might actually be. 

Any size at all he’d rather not have near his niece.

“Of course,” he nodded again, swinging the door closed and wondering who in town he would need to talk to in order to get a new one. “Just promise that you won’t tell your father. He’d have kittens if he knew I’d ever let you handle one of my guns.” 

 

**.:.**

 

“When did Nick leave?”

“Before dawn,” Charlie didn’t even look up from her book as she made notes in the margin.

“And you just let him go?”

Still scribbling away, the scratch of her pen almost hidden under the drum of rain, Charlie pointed out rather sharply, “He’s an adult, not a stray dog. We couldn’t just keep him.”

Dean watched Sam struggle with that, his little brother making a visible effort not to pace. “What’s the big deal? That man didn’t seem to have a problem dealing with me and Charlie. I’m sure he could handle a little rain.”

With an annoyed sigh, Sam looked out the window in the direction of town. 

Biting his tongue, Dean didn’t point out that there wouldn’t be any more haired devil lizards―and even if there were they’d been fixated on the Winchesters since Sam had crushed every egg in the nest a few weeks back. The englishman would be fine on the ride back into town, even if he got a little wet. 

““It’s not the rain I’m worried about,” Sam mumbled to himself. “There was a ring around the moon last night.”

Charlie looked up from her work, Dean did as well. 

Their sister was out of her chair first, going to the window beside Sam.  “You’re sure?”

Sam nodded once.

The moon had long since gone to sleep and clouds had rolled in to blanket the sky. There was nothing to see, but they were both over there frowning hard enough that Dean didn’t have much of a choice other than to join them.

Those rain clouds got a good and long scowl, taking the punishment for the absent moon and its bad omens.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Dean demanded.

“You were all sleeping.”

“Yeah, and why weren’t you?”

Sam didn’t answer and both Dean and Charlie looked up at him expectantly. 

The rain kept falling and Sam very pointedly kept watching it instead of answering. 

“Alright, keep your secrets,” Dean grumbled and went back into the kitchen to see to his breakfast. “Let’s not worry too much yet. It’s probably nothing.” 

A ring was a ring. Just a halo of light. It could mean anything from a broken dish to a death―which frankly was too broad of a range of concerns to really deal with. Best to leave it be for now.

Best to stubbornly refuse to mention what had happened last time the moon had worn a ring. 

Limping just a touch, Dean took his food out to the porch. 

Just beyond the slope of the roof sat their two biggest copper pots and what looked like every piece of silver that they owned. The rain was cleansing, doing what it did naturally. Magic didn’t care that it was an icy rain, or that it was autumn and not a time for growth and renewal. Magic just wanted the clean flowing water. 

Dean sort of felt the same way. 

It helped to clear his head. 

Or at least it usually did. 

“Dean?”

Blinking, he looked up to see his brother standing over him with that concerned pinch between his eyes. 

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, ‘m fine.”

“That was the fifth time I said your name.” Sam leaned against the railing. “You’ve been out here almost two hours.”

“No,” he shook his head, glancing down at the very cold breakfast between his hands. He hadn’t had a single bite.

“You look about a hundred miles away.”

Dean didn’t have a good response to that.

“What were humming?”

“I was humming?” He couldn’t remember getting lost standing out here, much less humming.

“A song I didn’t know.”

Feeling only a touch defensive at his own odd behaviour, Dean rolled his shoulders and raised his chin. “So? A man can hum on his own porch if he wants.”

“Dean, you don’t know any songs I don’t know.”

“What are you trying to say?”

But his brother looked as confused as Dean felt and didn’t seem to have an answer.

Sulking, he tried to eat his cold breakfast, but one bite in was enough for him to decide that it was too late for the eggs. 

“You um…” Sam started uncomfortably, “you think it’s finally happening?”

“Shut up.”

“I mean, Mom always talked about how before she even met Dad she could hear him calling to her. Are you hearing things?”

Dean ran a hand over his face, grumbling, “I’m not hearing a damn thing. I’m not going to hear a damn thing. I fixed it.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“You deal with your curse in your way, I’ll deal with my curse in mine.”

If anyone  _ should  _ know better than to try and argue with Dean, it would be Sam. However, stubbornness ran in their family. 

“Dean, you can’t trick a curse into not working by putting a made up spell on yourself when you were a kid.”

“It wasn’t made up, and it’s been working so far, so maybe just leave it alone.”

Around them, the wind shifted. Cold rain darkening the wood of the porch around his feet. Far down the road their windchimes sang, and softly under their music Dean heard a voice. 

Sam didn’t respond to the near inaudible whisper. Didn’t turn his head or even blink.

And Dean could ignore it just as easily, poking at his eggs, humming softly under the drum of rain against the roof. It’s not like he had to acknowledge the sounds. His whole life there had been whispers in these woods. Nothing sinister about it, just the old trees talking to each other.

But trees didn’t sound like this, no matter how hard Dean wished that they did. 

“You’re doing it again,” Sam pointed out almost like an apology’ “humming that song.”

Clearing his throat and dumping the eggs off into the dirt, Dean turned back to the house to grab his heavy coat and his father’s gun. “I-I’m going to go on a walk.”

“In this rain?

“It’s just rain,” Dean went inside, head feeling fuzzy. He didn’t want to go on a walk, but he was going all the same. Like an itch that needs scratching, it was all he could think about. Dean knew he could try and fight it, but he also knew it would only delay the inevitable. 

He needed to go. 

He  _ had  _ to go.

Even inside the house he could hear someone calling to him. Not by name. But calling for him all the same. Tugging on his coat he wondered if this is how Mom had felt. This quiet dread and angry reluctance as she followed the distant call of her curse.

Dean could feel the eyes of both his siblings on him as he limped gingerly off the porch and into the storm. Walking with his head down like a man walking towards the gallows. 

As far as he was concerned, his sibling had gotten off lucky. 

At least neither of their curses demanded a life. 

The story of his curse was an old one, something that his mother had told him probably a hundred times. Their great-great-grandmother Mercy had fallen for a man she shouldn’t, but love rarely ever makes good choices. The man had put a baby inside her and before she even knew he was sent away to fight in the revolution. Months later his body was sent home to in a pine box and Mercy’s heart broke. She cried uncontrollably for days. She prayed for God to bring him back to her, and when God didn’t answer she prayed to someone else. Promising anything,  _ anything  _ if only her lover would take her in his arms again. 

That second prayer was answered, and the only thing asked for in payment was her unborn daughter. An awful deal. The worst sort of price. But in her grief she’d agreed. A life for a life.

Her lover woke as if he’d never been dead. 

And then he left her to return to his wife.

Alone and devastated, Mercy gave birth to a perfect baby girl who was taken from her arms by the creature who’d brought her unfaithful lover back to her.

That old story said that in her sorrow Mercy tried to kill the creature who had taken everything from her, and in return for her insolence the creature laid a curse on their family. Every first born would get to relive Mercy’s deal. They would fall in love, they would have a child, and then they’d be given a choice. A choice to trade a life for a life. To pick who would be taken from them. 

An awful sort of curse, but one that Dean had fixed when he was very small.

He couldn’t fall in love if the person meant for him couldn’t possibly exist. 

And he’d made sure of that. 

There was no way that anyone could ever match up to the impossible list that he’d made when wishing for his true love. The words had been carefully written and sealed: with roses for love, molasses for sweetness, and slew of other things that seemed like good ingredients. Sam had helped; and granted, his brother had been five at the time, and neither of them really had much experience in casting back then, but they’d both been positive that it was a sound spell.

And so far Dean didn’t have any reason to believe that it hadn’t worked. 

But here he was, following a voice that only he could hear, through a freezing rain storm for no reason at all other than he knew that he had to.

Maybe he would get lucky and it would be a monster, an answer to last night’s ring around the moon instead of a century old curse that had haunted Dean and every other first born child in his family.

Perhaps some sort of siren, or something equally dangerous and awful. 

A fight sounded so much better than falling in love.

The rain seemed further away as Dean walked beneath the trees that offered some protection from the worst of the storm. He followed no path, but then again he’d never been able to get lost in these woods. They were just as much home as the house. Weaving through the trees, nodding to them from time to time like they were old friends, Dean followed the sound of that distant voice, walking nearly an hour before he realised that the voice was singing. 

It wasn’t even a nice voice for singing. If it was a siren they weren’t a very good one. 

He reached the river and he shadowed it downstream until he found a natural bridge across in the form of a fallen oak tree covered in spongy moss. The bark was slippery under his feet, the river beneath already rising up to nearly meet him. If the rain kept on like this the whole log would be covered before nightfall. Once his feet were back on solid ground, Dean looked back, silently hoping that this would be over with long before that because he hated looking for a safe place to cross in a storm. 

Even though he didn’t recognise the song, the rise and fall of notes was starting to become unpleasantly familiar. And like a ship at night following the glow of a lighthouse along the rocky coast, Dean trailed after that voice, letting it guide him.

Somewhere under the distinctive scent of the storm, a metallic taste caught on the back of Dean’s tongue.  Instinctively, he swung Dad’s old rifle down from his shoulder and double checked that a bullet was chambered. 

Over the years all sorts of dead things had been found in the woods. Occasionally it would be the remains of a deer, but most often it was a skunk, racoon, or something else furry and small. Usually it was the obvious result of bears or wolves, especially this time of year.

The scent grew stronger and Dean stopped when he saw the body. It was a wolf. 

A whole wolf.

With its head cracked open beneath the weight of a large rock. 

There weren’t really any animals in these woods that would kill and leave perfectly good meat behind. 

Skirting the corpse, Dean moved a bit more cautiously, mindful of fallen sticks and foliage. 

That voice was even clearer now, enough that he realised it was a man’s, and words threaded softly through the rain. 

“ _ Be still, my soul…  _ ― _ hast’ning on… disa _ ―  _ and fear are gone, _ ”

Dean shouldered his gun again, not sure how to feel about the fact that his ‘monster’ was singing some sort of hymn. It had to be someone from town, probably out checking traps, or doing some night fishing, and got caught in the storm. 

Honestly, it was a relief. 

This here wasn’t a monster and it certainly wasn’t a curse―just some foolish soul to escort back to town like he’d done at least a dozen times in the last few years. Any time someone got lost in the wood half the town would be up at the farm asking for help. Funny how superstitions could be so easily forgotten when someone needed something from you. 

He should have kept the gun level, if only because he might have been able to use it as a weak shield for when the tree branch swung directly at his head. 

The ground rose up to meet Dean, his shoulder wedging painfully between the muddy earth and the weight of the rest of his body. Ears ringing, blood slick on his teeth, he blearily looked up into the branches and grey clouds. 

Numbly, Dean reached for the rifle, only to find it missing. 

Blood slid down his throat as he struggled to sit up, blinking wildly as the cold end of the gunbarrel touched his nose. The world was still listing sideways, and Dean didn’t think he’d been hit so hard in a very long time. Hard enough that he was finding it near impossible to bring into focus the man holding his father’s gun. Dark hair, bright eyes that were a little too wide. No one Dean recognised.

The stranger was talking, but neither words nor rainfall made it through Dean’s cracked head. 

He would have sworn, would have bet money, that it was only an old fashion head wound and some survival instinct coursing through him, but as his vision started to clear his heart began to pound. Lying there flat on his back, head singing with pain, squinting through the rain to look down the length of his own gun, Dean found he couldn’t breathe. 

There was water running into the strange man’s eyes, he looked frightened but also grimly determined― and more than any self preservation, Dean wished that he could get to his feet, that he could brush the rain from this man’s face and pull him in close, to comfort him and ease from his whatever fears he had. 

Almost as if he could sense Dean’s utterly alien desire to hold this man, the stranger backed away, continuing to make his soundless words. 

Dean finally remembered to breathe, coughing on the blood in his mouth. That copper taste helped to bring him slightly back to his senses and though he didn’t know how loudly he was talking, Dean said in no uncertain terms, “That’s my father’s gun you got there and you need to put it down.” Namely because he did not want to try (or even know if he was currently capable of) taking back the gun. But more than that, this man had the butt of the rifle resting on the top of his shoulder instead of notched against it, if he was cocky enough to pull the trigger he’d end up hurting himself almost as badly.

The idea of anything hurting this man here, even his own carelessness, made Dean want to do reckless things. 

The stranger made no indication that he’d heard the request to drop the gun, instead demanding, “What are you?” 

The first words that made it through the deafening ringing in Dean’s skull were rather strange ones, and for a few of those pounding heartbeats all Dean could manage was to lay there replaying that voice. It was only when the question was repeated and the gun aimed at his stomach did some sense seep back into Dean’s damaged and traitorous mind.

Swallowing hard he demanded right back, “The fuck you mean what am I?”

The man looked silently at Dean before something almost like a smile crept in, and he spoke in that same soft way that Nick had, “Last night I was terribly lost and met a strange woman who offered me a safe place to rest for the night, but as we walked she… she turned into a wolf and tried to eat me.” 

Dean looked up at the second englishman that he’d never wanted to meet, and fought back the almost overwhelming need to ask if he was alright. Struggling to find any of himself left in the reeling and strange thoughts running through him, Dean awkwardly clarified, “You think the woman turned into a wolf?”

The gun was almost respectfully rested against a tree before the man held a hand out to help Dean to his feet. “I  _ think  _ that I shouldn’t have eaten those berries I found beside the river because that wolf spoke with the same voice that the woman had. You look like a solid and trustworthy sort of apparition though.” 

Reluctantly, Dean took the man’s hand and unsteadily got to his feet, looking this stranger straight in the eye. His eyes the same endless and terribly threatening sort of blue as the sea after a storm.

Something was very wrong with Dean. He pressed a hand to his face, feeling out the damage that had been done, wondering how and why it was so very awful.

He needed to say something, he couldn’t just stay standing here doing his damndest not to look at this man. Uncomfortably he found words, “You the new preacher?”

“Yes,” the man sounded oddly as uneasy about all this as Dean felt. “You seem to have me at a disadvantage.”

“Yeah well,” Dean spit blood onto the rain soaked ground, “we’ll call us even.”

“I’m sorry―for hitting you, not for not knowing your name.”

“Didn’t know preachers  _ could  _ hit,” Dean said instead of acknowledge that the other man had hurt him as badly as he did.  

“We’re not supposed to, but we can when we’re concerned that more strange women in the woods are going to offer them lodging, only to turn into a wild animal and eat their face. I am rather attached to my face, mister…”

“Winchester,” Dean spit again, rubbing his jaw as he went and retrieved his gun. “Don’t think I’ve ever been mistaken for a strange woman before.” He turned back to the preacher and felt his insides clench in slight fear by how close the man was to him. Certainly closer than he should be. Close enough to see that the skin of his throat was torn and raw, the collar of his shirt stained red where it peeked out from the edges of his heavy coat.  

“Winchester? Does that make you Miss Charlie’s brother? Did you get the pie?”

Which was not exactly what Dean had been expecting. “Yeah. Thank you?”

A look of relief washed over the preacher, and he left out a soft sigh before asking, “So my brother made it safely to you?” 

If this is what the preacher wanted to talk about, Dean would eagerly follow, if only because he was afraid that if he was left to his own devices he’d start trying to play doctor, and to be perfectly honest he didn’t trust himself in that moment. 

“Nick?” Dean nodded, pulling the strap of the rifle over his non injured shoulder. “Yeah, your brother got himself hurt on the road so we kept him overnight and patched him up before sending him back this morning.” Speaking of roads, “You’re awful far from anywhere, preacher. How’d you get yourself so lost?”

“My brother hadn’t come home. I was worried and came looking for him.”

“And you left the road because...?”

“It was dark last night. I followed the lights in the trees. I assumed I was heading towards your home.” 

Looking at this man for maybe a little too long, Dean started to notice the smears of mud on his shoes and pants, the scratches on his knuckles, the sleepless bruises under his eyes. “You came all the way out here at night without a lantern?”

“I didn’t think I would need one.”

“Or a horse?”

“I didn’t need one.”

“You just decided to trust in luck?” 

“I was trusting in God to guide me where I needed to go.”

“Yeah, well, God doesn’t really come out to these parts, so I guess I’ll have to do his job for him.” It shouldn’t have been so hard to keep a straight face, but he did his best. “Come on, preacher.”

Dean moved slowly, his head throbbing. The world around them was still tipping dangerously at times, and more often then he would like, he noticed himself using passing trees to keep steady.

“We can take a rest if you need,” the preacher offered.

“I’m fine,” Dean grunted. 

“Do you need to lean on me, or have me carry your gun?”

Though they were roughly the same height, Dean couldn’t help but imagine that his arm would fit so easily around the preacher’s shoulders. Stubborn and confused, Dean focused on keeping his hands around the rifle strap and his feet firmly beneath him. “Touch my gun again and I’ll take a turn cracking you over the head,” and it had been nearly a year since he’d had a chance to threaten the clergy. 

But it didn’t feel nearly as satisfying as it had been with Father Richmond.

In fact, Dean almost felt bad for it, and was half tempted to apologise. 

“You will let me know when you’ve noticed how hurt you are though? It’s dangerous to push yourself after a head injury.”

Dean grunted and kept drunkenly weaving through the trees until they reached the river. The rushing water was lapping at the fallen oak tree, the natural bridge nearly all swallowed up as the storm kept on, indifferent to the people down here.

“Are we taking a rest?”

“No, we’re crossing,” Dean slipped the rifle’s strap across his chest for extra security and steeled himself for this awful plan. “It’s slippery, so watch your feet.”

With some obvious reluctance, the other man said, “Mister Winchester, I don’t think that this is a good idea. Perhaps we should go upstream to the bridge―the proper bridge that isn’t underwater.”

Dean hesitated, one foot already on the oak. The nearest ‘proper’ bridge was nearly five miles upstream, too far to go as a detour. “This is the best way across. Just move slowly,” he instructed and carefully found his balance. 

“How slow is slowly?” The preacher asked from the safety of the riverbank, voice so soft under the roaring sounds of the storm. 

Whispering mostly to himself, Dean answered, “Slow as making love on Sunday to the sound of church bells, Father,” grinning faintly. 

He was nearly halfway across the log when from behind, almost covered up by the noise of the rain and river, was a loud splash. Turning, nearly losing his footing, Dean watched the preacher surface for only a second, sputtering and coughing before going back below the churning waters.  

Clenching his fists, swearing a heartfelt, “Son of a bitch,” Dean jumped in after.

  
  


  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the record, no spoilers intended, but we've got NO major character death in this story. Just in case anyone felt a bit concerned. <3 I would not do that to you


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha! didn't see that one coming, did ya?  
> Two story updates nearly back to back, this is the power that I have when I need to be working on other, more important, things. I remember fondly back to studying for finals and writing The Boy Who. So many sleepy late nights writing. Ah, good times :D

Castiel had taken two full steps onto this impromptu bridge, getting no more than his full weight on the fallen tree before he thought he heard the older Winchester brother murmuring something about ‘making love’ and the next thing he knew he was in the water. 

The current was strong and the river surprisingly deep, and even if neither of those things came into play, the fact that Castiel had never learned to swim would have been enough. 

Water was in his lungs, a uniquely awful experience, and as he fought his way to the surface he had only the briefest glimpse of the bridge before he was once more sinking. Down and up became interchangeable and any breath that he’d been holding on to was knocked from him as the current flung him against rocks that had been unseen from the shore.

He’d never drowned before. Objectively it was terrifying, and shockingly painful, water filling his mouth and nose, his lungs burning despite the cold everywhere else, his throat feeling torn with the effort to cough his airways clear. 

Just as suddenly as he’d gone under he was breaching the surface again, only long enough to gag and choke, sputtering uselessly before water rushed over him once more and his vision started to dim. His limbs seeming too heavy to do anything other than drag him downward. Darkness surrounding him, and with his last conscious effort, he said a silent prayer that in his passing someone would care for his daughter.

He should have been cold. 

Death seemed like it should have been terribly cold.

But Castiel found himself coughing up acid, everything inside him burning.

He was burning. 

Like a martyr. 

Like a soul bound for Hell.

He’d never been so hot in his life, his muscles on fire, locked up, not letting him move as the pain ate him alive. 

Alive. 

He wasn’t dead. 

He hadn’t drowned, but these were cursory thoughts at best, whispers from a distant room in his mind as the place burned down around him. 

Dimly he realised that someone was holding him upright, a cold hand against his throat, cupping his jaw, another hand striking solidly against his back. It hurt. Everything hurt. Water falling from his mouth hot as blood, and when there seemed to be no water left to choke on the coughing continued. Drawing breath was agony, the tightness through his limbs and chest nearly unbearable as he shivered like a convulsion despite the smothering heat he felt.

“Keep breathing,” a nearly angelic voice whispered against his ear, comforting for the smallest moment before saying, “Come on, you holy son of a bitch. You know how to breathe. So do it.”

A rather strange angel.

Perhaps even a slightly offensive one. 

The ground came up gently beneath Castiel, something solid to tremble against while he tried feebly to convince his body that it wasn’t actually dead despite every feeling to the contrary. Someone loomed over him, the owner of those cold hands. Hands that were stripping him of his coat and shirt, painfully rubbing over the bare skin of his chest until the heat started to recede, replaced by a painful sort of cold, and then the hands moved to his sides, his shoulders, chest again, then arms. Hands that were increasingly rough scrubbing that painful heat from his body only to make room for a devastating coldness.

“S-s-stop,” he pleaded when he discovered that the cold was somehow worse.

“I’m not going to let you freeze to death.”

“Please.”

“ ‘s bad luck, preacher.” The man dragged him up off the dirt and pulled him in tightly, crushing Castiel against his chest so tightly that there was hardly any room left to shiver.

This wasn’t an angel, if only because an angel wouldn’t be breathing hotly against the top of his head, or wearing dirty boots. Or hugging like this. It was a terrible sort of hug, constricting and rough like this man hadn’t ever been given instruction on how to do it right.

“W-W-Win-n-n-nchest-t-t-ter?” He asked through clattering teeth, trying to turn his head up to look at the man currently squeezing the life out of him. 

“Dean.”

“D-D-D-Dean-n-n?” All Castiel seemed to accomplish was pressing his cold nose into the warm underside of the man’s jaw.

“Yeah, you got it.” Those arms loosened a touch, just enough to resume rubbing roughly against his sides, friction making the smallest, most unsustaining amount of heat. “When you stop shakin’ I’ll see if I can’t make a fire for us.”

“I f-f-f-fell in in in in the river.”

“Sure did,” he agreed with this unhappy sort of rumble in his chest that Castiel could feel against his back, “an’ I pulled you back out even though you hit me with part of a god damned tree and I should have left you to float away.”

“T-t-t-thank-k-k y-y-y-you.”

“Stop talking.”

Dean Winchester didn’t seem like a happy sort of person―but he was also soaking wet and shaking nearly as bad as Castiel, so perhaps he was not at his best.

His hand were workman’s hands, calloused from use, and as he rubbed warmth into Castiel’s shoulders and sides he left behind scratches and raw, aching skin. A dull sort of pain hardly worth noting under the stiffening cold, pain that was so much better than being dead.

They sat unspeaking as the rush of the nearby river said plenty for them. The storm kept blustering on, but they seemed to be sitting under the low hanging boughs of a sturdy evergreen and only the occasional heavy drop found its way through the pine needles to fall into their protected little cave.

Castiel curled against the other man to find whatever shared warmth there was to be found. Dean’s wet shirt clung to his cheek, the faint earthy scent of the man oddly comforting. Cold and hurt but both alive and despite all evidence to the contrary, Castiel found that he felt oddly safe in that moment. 

That very short lived moment.

“No. Nope. Off. I’m going to go make a fire.” And Dean slid out from behind Castiel in a single well-oiled movement before walking off into the forest.

Finding himself very alone, but only half frozen, Castiel pulled his knees to his chest, hugging them tightly. Wet coughs still shook him and made the tightness in his back remember that consuming burning from before. 

Leaving Waterbridge for these woods had made him feel like Alice tumbling down a rabbit hole, and this was quite possibly the strangest most dreamlike sort of day that he’d ever had. If at some point he made it safely home he’d be sure to tell his brother all about it so they could share in a laugh. 

This forest here was nothing at all like the one around the boarding school that he’d attended in his youth. Last night there had been dancing lights that he could not draw close to no matter how much he walked, and whispers that knew his name―granted both of those came after he’d grown hungry enough to snack on the plants growing along the riverside, and he was positive that that would be Nick’s favorite part of the story. 

In the pale light of day, with the confusion and frights of last night behind him, it was all easy enough to explain away all the oddness as nothing more than a bad night.

Dean returned, his arms full of damp branches. 

“I k-know you must think me a right-t ass,” Castiel cleared his throat and winced at the pain it brought on, “but-t I don’t-think t-t-those sticks will burn well.”

“Preacher,” Dean looked down at him, ducking to fit beneath the limbs of the pine tree, “don’t tell me how to do my job.” He set down his branches, crouching beside them as he pulled some small and equally wet things from his pockets. “Just as bad as your damn brother. I swear, wild hogs give me less trouble than the two of you have in the last couple days.”

“M-my brother will be happ-p-py to hear t-t-that,” Castiel laughed weakly. Nick had always enjoyed making things difficult for others. 

“Your brother is a real son of a bitch, but at least  _ he  _ didn’t fall in the damn river.” He stacked his sticks in a careful sort of way, a tight ring circling the leaves he’d brought, each one bright with autumn colors. Next he produced a battered hip flask that he drained the contents of over his lovely little mess, effectively making them even more damp. 

It was the worst start to any campfire that Castiel had ever seen. Such little faith did he have in this Winchester’s forest survival skills, that he jumped when the pack of sticks sputtered to life, smoking terribly but already spilling warmth.

With a soft grunt of satisfaction, Dean sat back and held his hands up to the guttering flame. “It’s just a fire, preacher. They’ve got those back in England, right?”     

“I didn’t-t-t… t-t-they were very wet-t-t.”

“I’m getting tired listening to you try to talk.” Dean scratched at his forehead before glancing up. “If you’ve melted enough to move, hang your things up to dry.”

Castiel wanted to question this plan. Seeing as it was still raining, making the effort to dry his coat and shirt relatively pointless. Still, he did as he was told before settling back down beside the fire and hugging himself just as tightly as before.

He watched the older Winchester brother who was battered and bruised and dripping rainwater like a cloud, and still managed to be a strikingly beautiful man in the way that no men should be but some still managed. His face brought to mind paintings of saints or angels. The sort of perfection that could only come at the hand of an artist. 

It had been the very first thing that Castiel noticed about Dean. 

It had also been the exact reason he’d beaten the man with a branch. 

The woman who had tried to kill him the night before had also been unnaturally attractive.

He’d just assumed that Dean was another awful manifestation of his sleep deprived and drug addled mind. Now knowing that he was a simple man of flesh and bone, Castiel felt rather guilty for bruising him so badly.

“Do y-y-you―”

“Preacher. Just warm up. We can talk once I get you home.”

Doing his best not to pout, Castiel nodded and rested his chin against his knees. He could feel the heat of the fire caressing his cheeks like a warm breeze, and though he still ached, still shivered, still coughed weakly from time to time, he closed his eyes and did his best to ‘just warm up’. 

If he didn’t know any better he’d say that there was something magical about that small flickering campfire with its rose-coloured smoke. The flames were small enough that they could have been hidden beneath a hat and yet Castiel could feel a summer’s heat moving over him, into him, easing the ice from his bones. 

He slitted his eyes open to watch the curl of flame dancing slowly, cracking from time to time over the collection of sticks, but not blackening or devouring the fuel. 

Slowly, carefully, he spoke through his chattering teeth, “I think-k there is something wrong with me.”

“Definitely.”

Castiel raised his gaze to look through the smoke at the other man. There was purple bruising along Dean’s jaw, his lower lip split and blood in the corner of his right eye. He needed a shave, which was more of a side note and not at all a result of Castiel’s wild defensive swinging. 

“I’m still seeing t-things.” 

The way that Dean watched him felt like a physical weight, as if he were trying to bore holes in Castiel, to ground him down so that he’d stop talking. 

“T-th…” a tight breath and he tried again, even though it hurt something awful to force the words out slow and clear. “The fire looks wrong.”

“Yeah, well, you weren’t breathing when I pulled you out of the river. Didn’t have a heartbeat either. Your head is going to be a bit funny for a while.” 

“It was  _ funny _ before I f-fell in the river.”

Dean licked the angry line in his lower lip, letting out a soft breath that made the smoke between them swirl. 

And the smoke smelled faintly of strawberries and maple.

The man sat taller, squaring his shoulders before asking with a somehow more serious tone, “Those berries you ate, what did they look like?”

“Red.”

“Red. That really narrows it down.” He let out another long breath. “An’ what did they taste like?”

It was hard to remember back to the middle of the night with so very much gone wrong between then and now. “Like ...burning?”

“You―” Dean’s eyes went a little wide, only a hint of an expression before he ran his hands through his hair and over his face. “They tasted like  _ burning _ and you still ate them?”

“Only a couple handfuls,” Castiel said in his own defence. “I was very hungry.”

“They tasted like  _ burning _ .”

“You Americans like t-to over season everything, I just-t assumed they were spicy.”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

“Why would I be joking about this?”

Dean had started chewing on his lower lip, messing with the split in the corner in a way that had to be painful. “Alright. Alright. It’s been a few hours since then?”

“Yes.”

“Then they probably won’t kill you.”

“Could you maybe say that again, but in a more comforting way?”

“What, you want me to hold your hand while I do it?” Dean raised his eyebrows. “I think that gentle comforting thing is really more your job than mine, preacher.”

“Castiel,” he corrected. “Preacher is like if I called you ‘farmer’ or ‘brewer’.”

“I’ve been called a lot worse things,” he narrowed his eyes before hesitantly saying, “Castiel.”

Nothing at all would have convinced him that he was fine and safe after eating what he’d eaten, because aside from the hallucinations of talking forest animals in the night, the fire was still wrong, and Castiel’s name sounded oddly different when said by Dean.

“Why is it your brother got a nice normal name like ‘Nick’ and you got stuck with  _ Castiel _ ?”

“Because…” he really hated this question because the answer made their family sound lunatic. “Because our Mother had a seance both times she was with child and she asked the spirits of her departed parents what we should be called.”

“That’s some bad luck, Cas.”

Castiel sighed, but didn’t argue against the nickname if only because it was marginally less awful than  _ Cassy _ .

“You look like you’ve stopped shaking,” Dean said as he pointedly looked away from Castiel. “Why don’t you get dressed and we can get out of here?”

 

**.:.**

 

The visit to the Singers had been uneventful but oddly reassuring. Claire could tell that Uncle was upset even if he was keeping a flat smile in place for her benefit. Ellen Singer had made her some sugar milk as a nice distraction while Uncle had talked with Mr. Bobby. Claire knew that she wasn’t supposed to hear them, that’s why they were on the other side of the room and using hushed tones. But she’d heard most of it. 

Mr. Bobby had basically told Uncle that if Papa was out in the woods the Winchesters would find him and bring him back. Apparently, anyone who’d ever been lost in those woods over the past twenty years had always been brought back to town by a Winchester. The old man hadn’t elaborated or clarified, just reassured Uncle that Papa would be home in the next few days and it would be safer to wait than to go into the woods looking for him. 

The walk back over the bridge towards home saw her Uncle broodingly quiet. He’d never really been the sort of person to  _ ‘just wait’ _ .

Claire took his arm, forcing a smile that probably looked as flat as his. “Mr. Bobby seemed rather certain that Papa was fine.”

“Yes he was.”

“You didn’t believe him?” Even though she hadn’t meant anything by it, she could feel her insides twist in uncertainty. 

“Bobby said that those three grew up in the woods, hunted out there their whole lives.” Uncle nodded more to himself than at her. “Apparently no one ever breaks a branch that they don’t know about.”

“You say it like that it sounds almost like an animal sense or magic.”

“ _ Magic _ ,” he chuckled and looked at her. “Did Cassy or I ever tell you about your Grandmother and her cards?”

Every story that she’d ever heard about Nanna Novak had been an odd one, and Claire smiled and shook her head, eager for a distraction from the worry that still ate away at her. 

“Well, now is really the time, your father would hate me telling you about them.” He patted her hand that curled around his elbow as they walked past the graveyard and into the house. “She took a holiday in France while we were away at school―”

“With Grandpa?”

“No, this would be after his mysterious disappearance,” he winked at her, patting her hand again before going to the stove and setting the kettle on. 

Grandpa’s disappearance was one of Claire’s favorite stories. Papa said that he’d run off with another woman, but Uncle had always said that Nana had too much money for her husband to have ever left her. The suggestion that he’d never said directly was that his mother had killed his father, though nothing had ever been proven one way or another. 

“She came back from holiday with this set of magical cards, the sort that a fortune teller would have.”

“Could she tell people’s fortunes?”

“She seemed to think so.” He walked to the pantry and clattered around for a moment, “I remember begging her to do a reading for me,” and he returned to the kitchen with what looked to be the ingredients for rye bread. “I was younger than you at the time, and I can tell you that I have no memory of what the cards said about my future, but I can also tell you that those cards had French lithographs on them. The most beautiful artwork of the most naked people I’d ever seen.”

Claire pressed her hands to her mouth to stifle a laugh. “No.”

“Oh yes.” He grinned and handed her a spoon as he began to measure out ingredients. “More naked than any artwork in any of the London museums.”

“Women  _ and  _ men?” 

“Every bit of everyone,” Uncle nodded with a smile. 

Stirring together the milk and honey and eggs, Claire couldn’t keep from laughing. She knew what he was up to, distracting her and himself so that neither of them could worry about Papa. It was a rather obvious ploy and she appreciated it immensely.

The bread was in the oven―the two of them having tea while Claire giggled and leafed through the cards that her uncle had kept all these years and made her swear that she’d never tell her father about―when the kitchen door swung open.

In light of last night’s events, Claire let out a short and startled scream before she even saw who it was. She was half out of her chair, scrambling to grab the nearest weapon (which happened to be a butter knife), when she realised it was Papa and another man who’d both stopped still as statues. The men seemed more focused on Uncle that Claire, but probably because Uncle had also stood from his seat and had pulled out the pistol that Claire didn’t even know that he’d kept on him after taking it from her.

“I do hope that you two don’t greet all company that comes by this way,” Papa said calmly, though he sounded as though he’d come down with a sore throat, his voice surprisingly rougher than normal. 

“Oh, god damn it, Cassy,” and Uncle was putting his gun on the table before striding across the kitchen and taking his brother by the shoulders. “What happened to you? You look like hell.”

“Language,” Papa hissed before patting his brother’s arms with a grumpy sort of smile. 

Claire dropped her knife and practically ran across the room, ducking under Uncle’s arms to hug her father tightly, noticing how wet his clothes were and not caring one bit. He made a soft pained sound but held her just as tightly in return. 

“Papa, I was so worried. Uncle was gone and then you were gone, and now you’re both back but you also look like you’ve been mugged and beaten. And… who is that?”

She peered around her father’s shoulder at the man still standing in the doorway. He was a stranger to her. No one in town that she’d been introduced to yet. She was positive if only because even with a spectacular bruise over his cheek he was possible the most handsome man she’d ever seen. 

“Dean Winchester,” Uncle said like a dirty word.

The man smiled, either because of Uncle or because he was deliberately ignoring him, before holding a hand out to her. “You must be Claire. You’re even prettier than Charlie said.”

Claire mostly let go of her father before taking Mr. Winchester’s hand. “She said I was pretty?”

He chuckled, lightly pressing a kiss to the back of her knuckles. “She said you looked like an angel, and I think I have to agree.”

Feeling a bit flustered Claire looked down at her feet. “That’s very kind of you and your sister. Is.. is she well?”

“Claire,” Uncle’s tone was nearly angry. “Why don’t you clean up the table and go find the extra cups while I yell at your father for getting himself hurt.”

She glanced up at him, wondering why she was in trouble, but it was obvious that his irritation was fixed on Mr. Winchester. 

Comforted to know that Uncle’s anger was directed at someone else, she went to the table. All of the naughty cards were tucked into the pocket of her dress before she went down to the basement to look for where they had put the extra teacups. 

By the time she made it back upstairs all three men were sitting around the table, wearing slight variations of the same unhappy expression. 

Trying not to get in the way, she took the cups to the sink and rinsed them. 

“My dove,” Papa spoke up and she turned to look back at him. “Dean would like to know what happened here last night.” And from the concern in his voice it was obvious that he also wanted to know.

With Mr. Winchester watching her very closely, Claire took the biscuit tin down and started to arrange the shortbread cookies she’d made last week onto a plate. “Well… I was getting ready for bed when I heard a noise outside my window,” working while she spoke, she was pouring tea into cups for Papa and their guest by the time her story ended at the basement where she’d bolted the door and hid until Uncle returned home. 

Claire took the seat beside her father and dusted imaginary crumbs from the edge of her plate while all three men looked at her. “I … I’m sure that it was just some wild animal that followed me from the woods. I probably should have done better―”

“You did perfect,” Mr. Winchester cut her off gently. He hadn’t touched his tea, but had eaten two of the cookies. “I know a lot of grown men who wouldn’t have acted so calmly.”

Clair hadn’t felt even slightly calm the night before. 

“Do you remember anything else about last night?” Their guest asked her. “Any smells or sounds, either when it was here at the house, or out in the woods?” 

Though it was hard to hear his questions over her father’s, “Why were you out in the woods at night? That’s no place for a young lady to go wandering.”

“I wasn’t  _ wandering _ . I was picking mushrooms.”

Papa frowned. “Mushrooms?”

“Yes. Stag’s horn mushrooms. They’re supposed to be good for nerves and my book said that I could find them along the river in the evenings.” She looked up through her hair at her father’s very disapproving expression before timidly adding, “They’re supposed to be especially good if picked during a waxing moon. I got a whole basket of them in the cupboard.”

“Claire, please don’t go down to the river alone, especially at night.” Her father rarely ever told her what to do. He was a gentle sort of man, but today there was more than his regular parental concern in his tone.  “There’s no telling what you might run into out there.”

No telling indeed. 

She looked down into her cup, still uncomfortably aware of the scrutiny she was under. A part of the story of last night had been left out. She’d intentionally left it out because of Uncle, because he was a man who made Papa’s protectiveness look like neglect. 

“Claire,” Papa looked at her, trying to catch her eye. “What else?”

It felt like an interrogation, which was completely unfair seeing as out of every person at the table she was the only one who didn’t look like they’d recently been in a fight. “What else yourself?” She turned the question around. “Why are you wet and why are you all scratched up and scabby on your neck and hands?” 

“I’m wet because I was in the river,” Papa answered without really answering.

She folded her arms and looked at him, waiting. 

Papa sipped his tea. “Also, it was raining rather heavily on the walk here.”

Which was no sort of explanation. 

“Such violent rain, it’s a miracle you made it home in one piece.” Nodding as if she’d somehow won this conversation, Claire got up and went to go check on the bread in the oven. 

In the other room she could hear Mr. Winchester’s whisper laced through with laughter, “She’s worse than the two of you put together.”

Smiling despite her underlying worry for all three men in the other room, she pulled the bread from the oven and set it in the window sill to cool. 

Before they’d left to visit the Singers, Uncle had cleaned up all the broken glass from the night before. The window was still broken and would likely remain so for weeks until a new pane of glass could be delivered from Concord. Through the wide and jagged holes, Claire watched the woods. Distant rain clouds hung heavy over the trees, but the wind seemed to be blowing them away from town. Before they moved here she’d been told that Maine was just as cold and dreary as London, which she’d learned to be a lie. As odd as it was, she almost started missing the rain.  

With a longing sort of sigh, she turned to go back to the dining room and gasped softly when she saw Mr. Winchester standing in the doorway.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” he apologised with a smile. “If you don’t mind, I’ve been given permission to take you on a walk around the outside of the house.”

Claire frowned, smoothing her hands over her dress. She had no idea why he wanted to take her on a walk, or why he’d been allowed to even ask. “I would be delighted,” she answered with carefully checked reluctance.

He hadn’t made a move closer, just smiled a hesitant smile made uneven by the busted edge of his lip. “Only if you like.” 

This was the second time since yesterday that a charming man was offering to walk with her, but the two invitations felt wildly different. 

Opening the kitchen door, she nodded. “Please.” 

Dean accompanied her out towards the garden, but unlike Mr. Roman he didn’t take her arm, or really seem all that interested in guiding her. He’d simply stuffed his hands in his pockets and matched her step. They’d made nearly half a loop around the property before he said, “I thought you might be more willing to talk about last night without those two sour pusses listening.”

“I-I already said everything there was to say about last night.”

“You did,” he agreed with a sigh. 

They walked a little farther. 

Mr. Winchester cleared his throat softly before trying again, “You know, stag’s horn mushrooms are good for nerves, but they work even better if you mix them with maiden’s hair fern. Just a couple leaves to each mushroom cap. It’s going to taste like hell, but you can add a bit of mint for taste.”

She looked up at him. 

But he wasn’t looking at her, he was scanning the wild plants around them, leaving her side to pluck something from the shadow of the garden wall. He brought it back, holding a slender twist of vine covered in heart-shaped leaves no bigger than her pinky nail.

“See how it’s got these little red spots on the underside,” he turned the vine over. “Now, it looks like maiden’s hair, but it’s actually a cousin. It tastes even worse and will give you a stomach ache, so always check for the spots.”

Claire had stopped walking to examine the bit of fern, gingerly taking it from him. “I’ll make sure I check… do you know if it really makes any kind of difference if I stir clockwise or anti-clockwise?”

“Always stir clockwise if you’re brewing a good thing for yourself. It helps to draw in positivity.”

She looked from the plant up at this man. 

“And try to stir in counts of threes, if Charlie hadn’t already mentioned that to you.”

“Charlie didn’t talk to me at all about any of this.”

A curious smile overtook him. “Then who have you been talking to?”

“It’s in a book I found when we moved in.” She started walking again, not sure how much of anything she should tell this man, but he didn’t look at her the same way Papa did any time she mentioned her book. “It’s all about plants and… things.”

He nodded, asking with that same smile, “And it told you to pick mushrooms under a waxing moon?”

She nodded back, finding it easier to watch the ground than this man. 

“I’d be curious to look at this book of yours sometime,” he said with no sort of demand in his voice. 

It wasn’t that there were things in the book that she  _ shouldn’t  _ be reading. It was almost all information on herbs and plants and the moon and stars. Normal scientific sorts of things. But the book also showed her how to draw patterns that would keep her safe, and she knew enough about life to know that such things were mysticism and nonsense. The sorts of things that her father had strictly told her to keep away from. 

Papa rarely got mad. Almost never raised his voice. And Claire had made a point to keep her secret book away from him to avoid such a reaction.

Mr. Winchester might be different though. 

Twisting the bit of fern around her fingers she decided that he had to be different, and she’d have to trust that difference. “I ran into someone in the woods last night. Someone from town.”

The man kept pace with her, hands back in his pockets. 

“It was dark so I’m… I’m not sure what I saw,” she said rather sheepishly.

“What do you  _ think _ you saw?”

“Someone drowning something.”

“Something big or something small?”

Claire fidgeted, her hands twisting the bit of fern into a knot before she answered, “Small.” 

“Small like a mouse or small like a dog?”

Distressed, Claire looked up at him. “What difference does that make?”

He shifted uncomfortably, running a hand through his short dark hair. “I guess it doesn’t.”

She hesitated, waiting for his hands to go back to his pockets before she gently took his arm. “A little bigger than a dog.”

They began their second loop of the house. “Sheep maybe?”

“I thought you said it doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t,” he promised, not looking at her while they walked. “Did you get a close enough look at who it might have been?”

“Mayor Roman.”

If she hadn't been holding his arm should wouldn’t have noticed the slight tensing. 

“You’re sure it looked like him, or you  _ think  _ it looked like him?”

“I’m sure it  _ was _ him. He walked me home.”

“Did he?”

“He insisted.”

Mr. Winchester nodded and didn’t ask any more questions for a while. 

Claire held out her bit of fern while they walked, twirling it back and forth between her fingers. “This is when you’re supposed to tell me that you’ve known Mr. Roman your whole life and I’ve nothing at all to worry about.”

“You know, you and your father are the only people I’ve ever met who actually demand to be comforted.”

“It was not a demand. It was a helpful reminder since you seemed to have missed your cue.” 

Breath hissed from the man in something half laugh, half frustrated sigh. “I’ve known Dick Roman my whole life. He’s not the sort of man to lurk outside women’s bedrooms while they’re dressing for bed.”

“Thank you. Was that so hard?”

He laughed again, lightly touching her hand for only a moment. “No.”

“Perfect. Now you tell me that you know what was trying to break into our home and that it won’t come back and I’m being a silly little girl for even worrying about it.”

“See now, that would be very hard to do.”

“You could try. It’s called being polite.”

Claire watched the man’s eyes roll with that same sort of happy but irritated expression that her Uncle always gave Papa. 

“Polite. Sure.” He cleared his throat and took his time thinking over what to say next. “How’s about I don’t know what it is  _ yet _ . But I’ll find it and I’ll kill it.”

“Usually people don’t use words like ‘kill’ when being polite or comforting, but thank you for trying.” She gently turned their course back towards the house. “Did my Uncle bring you a pie like he was supposed to, or did he end up eating it by himself?”

“With everything else going on I’d forgotten,” he gave her a rather disarming grin. “Thanks. It was almost worth the busted up leg.”

“If you’d like to stay for an hour or two I’d gladly make you another for your cheek and for bringing my Papa home to me.”

“I also stitched up your uncle’s shoulder,” Mr. Winchester pointed out with that same grin.

“Did you?” She’d seen Uncle favoring his shoulder since coming home, and any guess that she’d had as to what happened hadn’t gone as far as him needing to be sewn up. And here she’d been so focused on worrying where her father was that she hadn’t taken the time to fuss properly over her other guardian. Shaking her head and smiling, she looked at the man beside her. “Sounds like I will be making two pies then.”

“Well now you’ve got me hoping for your Uncle to get roughed up more often.”

“Please don’t,” she begged with a laugh. “He doesn’t need any help finding trouble.” 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I'm out here, 1 convention down, 1 to go, sitting on an invitation to a 3rd one. busy busy busy, so many half finished paintings on my desk, and naturally I'm over here pulling late nights, writing when I should be working on 'important' things (whatever that means, though I guess in this case paintings= paying bills, unlike writing about boys who should be touching) XD  
> oh well. this is still my happy place, fighting off new story ideas in an effort to finish these 2 current ones off in a timely manner.  
> You guys enable me, and I love every moment of it

The walk over the river from the preacher’s house hadn’t been a long one, shorter than his little stroll twice around the house with Claire had been. But there had been very little to distract Dean as he crossed the bridge, nothing other than crystalline blue skies and a quiet simmering sort of anger. 

Clothes were hung on the line in back of the mayor’s home, blowing and snapping in the breeze as Gail Roman chased her little boy around the shifting maze of cloth. The kid was laughing brightly, the same laugh as his mother, though they both stopped when they saw Dean. 

“Ma’am,” he nodded to her, adjusting the rifle strap over his shoulder. 

With a hand on her son’s head, she smiled at Dean. “Hello, stranger. Did your sister come to town with you today?”

“Just me,” he tried and failed to not smile back. “How are your little ones doin’?”

“Happy and healthy.” Gail fluffed her boy’s hair and glanced over at a blanket spread out on the grass where two long-legged dogs were curled sleeping around a pink-cheeked baby.  

“What name did you pick for the little bean?”

“Bethany. It was Dick’s mother’s name,” Gail’s smile stayed, but it had become strained. “Now that we have a preacher again we were finally able to have her baptised.”

And that was one of those that Dean had never really understood even after Sam explained that the magic of it had a lot more to do with faith than with sprinkling water over a baby’s head. After all, Dean himself had been baptised once upon a time and it had never done him an ounce of good. Maybe it had been done wrong though, or maybe it just didn’t take―either way.

“Glad to hear it,” he nodded again to Gail. “Is your husband around?”

She pointed him out towards the fields and warned him against making any trouble. 

Grinning as he walked towards the swaying rows of corn, Dean asked over his shoulder, “Gail, when have you known a Winchester to come around and make trouble?”

“Send your sister my regards,” was the woman’s only response. 

It was a good one. 

Dean felt like he needed that small laugh right then. 

He found the Dick Roman out in his fields. The man easy enough to spot as this dark shadow sitting among the pumpkins and other autumn squash. 

The mayor didn’t look up from his work, only commented, “I thought that your brother had already made this month’s delivery,” in a disinterested tone as Dean drew close.

“Not here about that.”

“A social call?” He dug into dirt, pulling up thready weeds. “To what do I owe the honor?”

Dean dug his heels into the earth, biting his tongue as he said, “Wanted to say thank you for helping the Novak girl home last night.” 

He looked for a response in Dick, any slight twitch that didn’t belong, but the man kept on at his work.

“And…” Dean wasn’t that patient.

“And it was my pleasure.”

Dean  _ hated _ dealing with Dick Roman. He had since they were kids. The man was singularly the most difficult person that Dean had ever known and that was including himself.  “What were you putting in the river last night?”

“Nothing.” He finally looked up. “Are you trying to accuse me of something, Winchester?” 

“I’m saying I know you were at the river last night, and I know what you did, I just don’t know why... yet.”

“Yet,” Dick repeated with a sharp laugh before going back to his work. “I sometimes forget that you all at some point proclaimed yourselves our sheriffs and protectors. Funny how it’s your only job and still you all manage to be so very bad at it.”

Dean pointedly put his foot onto the little hand trowel that the other man was digging out weeds with. “You took the Novak girl home after she found you down at the river, and almost immediately after that their kitchen window gets busted in. Scared the kid half to death.”

“How unfortunate. I’ll see about placing an order for a new window pane.” He looked up, none of that perfect smile of his showing. “Now if you don’t mind I have work to do.”

Dean didn’t move his foot and with a sigh the other man finally let go of the tool and stood, squaring his shoulders against Dean’s. 

“I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to accuse me of. I’m hardly the window breaking kind of delinquent,” Dick said flatly. “That was always more of your area of expertise.”

“I’ve never broken any windows.”

“Sorry. My mistake. I always forget that it’s only doors that you break... and barns that you burn down, and caves that you collapse, and graves that you dig up. Am I missing something, or did I get all of the property damage and general mayhem that you and your siblings have caused in the last few years.”

Dick had actually left out the time that Charlie had made the river overflow and destroyed the wooden bridge outside of town two winters back. Though it was possible that the mayor didn’t know that particular incident had anything to do with the Winchesters so it was best not to bring it up.   

“I’m not here to listen to a list of my sins, Dick. The town’s lost three preachers in a year. Three. And then this morning I find preacher number four lost in the woods, beaten to all hell, and come back here to find his home thrashed. Same as last time. And the time before that. And the time before that.”

“I was unaware that the other three preachers had ever been found.”

Dean ground his teeth. “They weren’t.”

“It’s truly unfortunate. This whole business has been quite upsetting to the whole community―but I fail to see how a tragedy from months back has brought you to my home today.”

That was the thing that bothered Dean the most about this. 

He didn’t necessarily think that Dick was the cause of any of the oddness going on. Not the missing clergy, not the broken windows, not the sour wind that twisted through the forest. The mayor had always been a fairly upstanding member of the community. He was also magnificent at splitting hairs and playing his cards close to his chest, if only for the pleasure of pissing off Dean. 

Dick Roman might not have kicked off these troubles that had befallen Waterbridge, but he knew something about it, and Dean would not be convinced otherwise.

“I’m here because we both know that something is very wrong in this town. Has been for a year now, and it’s spreading. So, tell me what you put in the goddamn river, or―”

“Dean, do you really think it’s a good idea to come here, tell me you think I’m making all sorts of sinister trouble and then  _ threaten  _ me? Because unless you plan to stay here in town and make good on that threat all you’re doing is stirring up trouble for that sweet little Novak girl I found by the riverside last night.”

“Winchesters don’t threaten, Roman. We make promises. And if any harm comes to that kid I will hold you personally responsible.”

“That seems like a rather unhealthy amount of concern for a little girl that you hardly know,” Roman mused. “Does her father know?”

“It’s my job to have an unhealthy concern for  _ everyone  _ in this town, whether they were born here or are recent additions,” Dean said flatly. 

“It’s not your  _ job _ , Winchester,” and up until that point Dick had sounded nothing more than mildly annoyed by this interruption to his work. But now his dark eyes narrowed, his voice becoming hard and cold. “This is a quiet town aside from the troubles you and your siblings make, and if this were a hundred years ago I could have had the whole lot of you burnt at the stake from the rumors alone, never mind all the blasphemous things that you three have been caught doing.”

Dean would have loved to argue against that, only his own grandmother had been hung for nothing more than a handful of rumors. 

“Well,” he laughed it off though, refusing to be bullied, “it’s lucky for us those sorts of practices and superstitions died with our grandparents. We’re a civilized people now. Isn’t that right?”

“So very civilized. Which, lucky for you, means I’m going to ignore your wild accusations and let you head back to your forest.” He held one arm out wide, stepping aside to make room for Dean to walk on back the way he’d come. “And just to show that I take your concerns to heart, I’ll make sure to keep an eye on the Novaks for you while you’re away.”

Sam was the more diplomatic brother. He would have known the ‘proper’ way to respond to the mayor and his backhanded threats. It was a real shame that Sam was so far away.

“How about I’ll mind the preacher’s family and you mind your own. Maybe spend what time you can with that sweet baby girl of yours.”

“Get off my property.” There was no feeling at all in the soft command. 

Dean tipped an imaginary hat, adjusted the strap of his rifle, and walked off towards the woods.

He couldn’t abandon the preacher’s house to sit alone on this side of the river, flanked with unkind forests and haunted by only god knew what else―but he also couldn’t very well plant himself on their porch and keep watch until the next bad thing happened.

So he would leave someone else, or some _ thing _ else, to keep watch for him. 

The road was ignored in favor of a worn deer trail, and almost as soon as Dean passed under the shelter of the trees the air became cold and damp. The world shifting from summer to winter with only a couple steps. It took his breath away and he coughed on the chilly air, startling a nearby cardinal, red wings beating furiously against the still air and Dean decided to take it as a sign. 

He stilled himself, crouching low among the ferns and brambles, finding a stone with a comfortable weight. Soon enough the little red bird came back to its branch and with a well aimed throw Dean knocked the unfortunate thing to the ground. 

The body wasn’t hard to find, and Dean whispered his apologies as he scooped up the near weightless creature, “Sorry, little one.”

Everyone had their specialty.

Charlie had their mother’s skill with the cauldron and hearth, where as her brothers could hardly stir up a hangover remedy. 

Sam could proxy as easy as drawing breath; effortlessly taking anything from a person whether it be memories, anger, fear, or pain.

But Dean could conjure.

All magic required a sacrifice of sorts to work. The greater the magic the greater the sacrifice. Usually a plant or a bit of his own blood was all that was needed, but there were some spells, more questionable ones, that demanded more.

Conjuring tended to be one of those.

He hadn’t meant to break the bird’s neck and he cursed his own bad aim, because the small death would work as a sacrifice but not a bribe and he needed both. The cardinal flopped limply in one hand as Dean took iron needles from the little wooden box in his jacket pocket. 

With the skill of a man who had done this too many times before, the needles went into the bird’s chest as Dean began to whisper against its deaf ear, a name he shouldn’t know and old words that would be better off forgotten.

This here was as close to conjuring a familiar as anyone in his family ever had. No one owned the creature, just its name, but that was more than enough for the past five generations of Dean’s family to call on the fey spirit who had no body of its own.

In his hands the bird started to twitch, its head rolling uselessly from side to side, sightless eyes flying open. 

No sweet bird song came from its beak, instead Dean’s ears were assaulted with the reedy, near musical tones of gaelic profanity.

“ _ Mhac na galla. Gabh transna ort fhéin _ , Winchester.”

Dean didn’t need a direct translation. He understood the feelings quite clearly, and still he smiled a toothy smile down at the animated corpse in his hands.  “Hey, Eloi. I need a favor.”

“A fe’ckin’ favor?” The bird’s head lolled backwards at a strange angle, milky eyes staring unblinking. “You want a favor? First give me a right bloody workin’ body or  _ póg mo thóin _ .” 

“I gave you enough of a body to talk, now what do you want to trade for a favor?”

The creature perked up instantly, or at least as much as it could with a shattered spine. “What do ya’ have to trade?” 

“Another skull for your collection?”

“Not fe’ckin’ this one. I’ve already got a red bird, one that isn’t crunched.”

“A different skull,” Dean promised. “One you don’t already have.”

“Deal.”

A sharp prickle of magic ran up his spine and Dean fought off a shiver. A deal was a deal, and a deal with a creature like this was more binding than most. In as specific terms as possible, he laid out what he needed before pulling the needles from the bird and letting the spirit free to keep up its end of the deal.

Eloi would watch over the church, and the preacher, and the preacher’s family, and Dean could go back home with the knowledge that if anything strange happened here in town he’d be told about it almost immediately. A small consolation considering his own home was so far from the town’s center that it would be hours before he could make it back here, but it was still better than knowing nothing until next month’s delivery, and far more feasible than simply staying behind and waiting for something to go bump in the night.  

**.:.**

Sam looked up when he heard the wind chimes singing through the steady patter of rain. “Dean’s coming back.”

With a clatter glass, Charlie was up from the table and practically running across the room to push her face up against the window. “I don’t see him yet.”

“No,” Sam laughed. “I didn’t say he was  _ here _ .” He got out of his chair, marking the page in his book before going to join his sister.

It had been hours since Dean left in a near trancelike state, which meant that the Winchesters left behind had nothing better to do while they waited other than place bets on what would happen next. 

Sam had always been a romantic and had visions of their brother coming back to them with a beautiful and strong woman in tow, perhaps a native from one of the tribes up north, or maybe someone’s visiting cousin. 

Charlie had to be the realist thought, saying that Dean was more likely to have gotten into an easily avoidable argument with any sane woman that he met and he’d end up coming home alone and in a foul mood. 

Luckily, Sam was used to losing bets to his sister, so the disappointment wasn’t overwhelming when a lone figure finally came down the foggy path. 

With a peal of victorious laughter, Charlie opened the door, holding it wide as they waited for Dean to limp his way up to the porch. Her smiled faded though once he was close enough for them to see the beautifully vibrant bruising over half his face. 

“See, now that takes all the fun out of being right,” she said as she took the rifle from Dean and started to help tugg off his dripping wet coat. 

“You two making bets again?” 

“Losing bets,” Sam clarified. “Jesus, what happened? You look awful.”

Dean didn’t smile. He looked far too tired for that as he started to peel off his layers of wet clothes, a puddle of rain water rapidly forming around his feet. “Yeah, well, it’s been a long day.”

“Who was it?” Charlie asked as she hung the coat beside the fireplace.

Dean handed his shirts over to Sam before sinking into his chair beside the fire to try and kick off his boots. “Who was who?” 

“Who called to you?” There was a hint of overeagerness to Charlie’s question, a bit of a hidden romantic somewhere deep down inside. “Who did you hear? Was it like Mom said it would be?”

“No,” Dean grunted as he finally worked off his second boot. “It wasn’t like Mom said. There wasn’t any magic, or curse, or true- _ fuckin _ -love. It was just the goddamned preacher from town and he was lost and scared and hit me over the head with a branch instead of saying hello like a normal person would.”

“Claire’s father?” Charlie laughed. “He’s gentle as a lamb.”

“He’s a monster,” Dean corrected. “Just like his brother.”

That might have been a bit of an exaggeration. Granted, Sam had found Nick to be more than a little odd, and he’d hardly spoken with Castiel and that very short interaction had been pleasant if not slightly awkward. Calling them ‘monsters’ was a bit much.  

“I met him,” Charlie took her laugh all the way to the kitchen, putting the kettle on and pulling down a mix of jars and pots. “There was nothing in that man other than hope and kindness.”

“Yeah, well, maybe in the moment that you met him he was all benevolent and full of love for his fellow man, but you try coming across him in a storm, when he’s spent the night outside, eating berries that taste like burning, and then wildly hallucinating while having to kill a wolf with a rock. It puts him in a less than gentle mood.”

Sam slowed, looking back at his brother. “He killed a wolf with a rock?”

“Well, someone did. I found one with its skull busted in, and the preacher was saying some nonsense about a woman he met in the woods who turned into the wolf and then tried to eat him.” Dean leaned out of his chair towards Sam’s to steal the worn quilt hanging over the back. “The guy was jumping out of his skin.”

“Was it a werewolf?” Charlie asked as she crushed together various ingredients in the bottom of a cup.

“No,” not even the slightest hint of doubt in Dean as he curled up in his seat facing the fire. “It looked like a normal wolf far as I could tell, but I didn’t stay and get a good look. I can say for sure that I’m damn glad the preacher used a branch on me instead of a rock. The guy’s got some strength considering he spends his days lifting Bibles.” 

Sam hated that his brother’s unrelated statement instantly made him think of Nick. He’d seen the man unflinchingly wreck the furry lizard monstrosity that they’d come across on the road. Apparently Nick had also nearly taken out Charlie and Dean while doped up on valerian. If their short time together and the confusing tangle of the man’s memories were any indication to the life that he’d lived, it wouldn’t be all that surprising if his younger brother was just as formidable―religious background notwithstanding. 

It didn’t help at all that Sam found it amusing how not one, but two people had gotten the better of Dean in just as many days. 

**.:.**

“Uncle, there’s something on the roof.”

“What?” Nick didn’t look up from lantern he’d been trying to replace the wick on for nearly the last half hour. Apparently his eyes were getting old, or the wicks here in America were just made that badly, because the damn thing kept fraying. 

“There’s something up there.”

“Be more specific,” he sat back in his chair, rolling his shoulders and rubbing at his tired eyes. “Use more adjectives.”

Claire sighed, folding her arms, tugging her dressing gown tight. “There’s something small tapping and scurrying around up above our room.”

“Probably a racoon or possum. Don’t worry about it.” 

“Can you check?”

Any normal day or night he’d have been up on his feet in an instant, but it had been an awful long day filled with worry, and unfortunately his least favorite Winchester who had taken his sweet time eating pie and lingering like an old friend. 

Nick had liked even less the way that the uninvited guest had given himself the important job of cleaning up Castiel’s scrapes and cuts. Having to sit idly by while Dean Winchester ever so gently doctored Cassy was one of the singly most uncomfortable things that Nick had ever had to do. 

Now his younger brother was soaking in a bath, there were no Winchesters within miles of their home, Claire was supposed to be sleeping, and Nick was trying to unwind from a stressful few days by ‘fixing’ something. Or at least trying to fix something. The lantern was stubbornly refusing to be fixed. 

“It’s nothing to worry about, Claire,” he said in his most gentle tone. “Go back to bed, dove.”

She didn’t move.

The unfixable lantern was pushed aside.

“Alright,” Nick stood, lightly kissing his niece's head. “I will scare away the raccoon.”

“What if it isn’t a raccoon?” She asked so softly.

And it was a fair question considering that the cool night air was still flowing freely in through the splintered kitchen window―or considering that strange furry demon that he and Sam had met on the road. 

So he sent Claire to the bedroom, took his service pistol in hand, and went out into the dark of the night. 

Five very long minutes later he came back in, going straight to his niece, and nodding with a whispered, “Come on.” 

It took her a long moment to slip into her shoes and to pull on Nick’s coat, but she followed him outside with nothing but trust and curiosity. She was his delicate blonde shadow, keeping one step behind him as they walked out the front, off the porch and a little ways down the path. 

Leaning down to put his head at her level, Nick pointed up to the roof of the house where a ghostlike bird was stepping gingerly over the shingles, clicking its beak from time to time at moths that flittered to close.

“What is it?” Claire asked with an almost reverent hush to her voice.

“A raven or a crow, I think.” He straightened. “I’d have to get closer to tell.”

“But it’s white.”

“That happens sometimes,” Nick smiled. “You see it more in rabbits and mice though.”  

“It’s kind of beautiful.”

With a soft chuckle, he had to agree, and they stood out there in the dark watching the bird having a late night snack. Eventually their friend abandoned the roof to glide down into the cemetery where it sat atop a gravestone and made faint noises in their general direction.

“Come along. You’re not really dressed to be out here like this,” Nick gently took her arm, leading her back to the porch. He’d hoped that with the mystery of the odd noise solved, that his niece would head back to bed, but there was no such luck. 

As he sat back at the table to face the lantern that may or may not get dumped back in the basement where he’d found it, Nick looked up in surprise to see that he had company. Claire had taken the seat across from him, still wearing his coat, setting out her grandmother’s cards on the table between them.

“Thank you,” Nick started to gather them up. “Your papa would have been very mad if he caught me letting you play with them.”

“Then we won’t let him catch us,” she winked. “So, how do they work?”

There were times that she felt so much more like his own child than Castiel’s. That streak of rebellion in her definitely not coming from her father. Nick grinned at her, “You’re trying to get me in trouble again.”

“Again?” She asked so innocently. “What  _ again _ ? I’ve never gotten you in trouble.”

Clearing his throat to hide a chuckle, Nick shuffled the cards. He walked her through the beginning stages of doing a reading, or at least as much as he could remember from the few lessons that he’d had nearly twenty years ago. He left out the more lovely and romantic mysticism and ‘special gift’ side of things that his mother had always put behind the reading of cards. Instead clearly explaining to his niece that the ‘fortune’ or advice was all up to the reader’s interpretation and you could really make up any story that you wanted as long as it remotely related to the cards that were turned over. 

“Read mine,” Claire hadn’t lost interest once the magic of the cards was removed. “Make it a nice one.”

“A  _ nice one _ . Alright,” Nick shook his head, almost wishing that he’d made a nicer reading for Sam instead of teasing the man. 

The first card was a ten of swords, and though Nick couldn’t remember the meaning of each and every card’s iconography, he knew that this one, and it was arguably the worst card to pull. 

The second was the seven of wands, the image of a woman holding a burning branch overhead as she tried to beat away six other branches. The card upside down to Nick, facing Claire.

“So, a naked guy stabbed to death and a lady fighting off angry villagers?” Claire giggled. “I’ll kill a man with a bunch of swords and then get chased out of town?”

What Nick read was Claire becoming overwhelmed after a painful loss or some sort of betrayal of trust. Instead he read the cards in their inverse and told her in the most mystic of whispers he could make, “You will persevere through many trials, turning aside bad endings that seem almost inevitable―”

“Bad endings?”

“Romantic ones,” he clarified with an easy lie because he knew she would enjoy it.

“Oh. So good romance?” She peered up from under her lashes. “Does it maybe say with who?”

Nick turned a third card, showing the moon, hiding a frown behind a pretend yawn. Another card best read incorrectly. So, ignoring the card’s meaning of a fear and anxiety, he chose instead to point to the howling dog with its face turned up to a full moon. “With someone who owns a very nice dog. You’ll meet them during a full moon.”

“Does it say if its a man or a woman?”

Grateful for the distractingly odd question, Nick smiled. “The dog? It’ll be a man dog.”

“No,” Claire lightly kicked him under the table. “The romantic interest.”

Ready to answer her question with a few of his own, Nick hardly got more than one syllable out before he heard his brother’s raised voice.

“Nicolas.”

That was all. 

But Castiel didn’t need to say more than that, the sharp anger in his tone evident. 

Nick hastily started gathering up the cards, even knowing that it was too late to save himself from the lecture he could feel building behind him. “You done with your bath, Cassy?”

“Yes,” his brother’s tone clipped. “Not soon enough, apparently. Claire, it’s late. Maybe you should try and get some sleep.”

“Yes, Papa,” Claire quickly got up from the table mumbling a soft, “Good night,” to no one in particular before padding off down the hall and closing the bedroom door firmly behind her. Abandoning her poor uncle to wallow in the trouble that she’d made for him. 

“Where did you get those?” Castiel demanded, the anger in his tone even clearer now that the two of them were alone. “Those were supposed to be gotten rid of with the rest of Mother’s estate.”

“So I kept a few memories. I’m allowed to.”

“You know I don’t believe in that sort of thing. And you’re an adult and able to make your own blasphemous decisions if you wish to indulge in that sort of superstitious nonsense. But you are  _ not _ to share our mother’s superstitions and perverted ideas with my daughter.”

“Not believing in something and being afraid of it are two different things,” Nick said, struggling to keep the argument he felt from his tone, “and you never had a problem with it until Mom passed away.”

Castiel came around the table, taking his daughter’s seat, his dark eyebrows lowered. “I do not want my child looking at pornagraphic imagry.”

“It’s art,” Nick held the cards up against his chest where he could keep them safe. “They’re no different than your statue of Jesus hanging naked on the cross back in London.”

“Kindly keep your blasphemy to yourself.”

“Cassy, she’s seen nudity before,” a long suffering sigh rattled out of Nick. “You may not have noticed, but every male in town between eight and fifty eight has noticed that Claire is a young woman. She’s not a child anymore and I guarantee that at very least she’s seen her own breasts before looking at Mom’s cards today.”

His brother sputtered.

“And you’ve seen breasts too, you prude,” Nick pointed out, “even if it’s been a few years.”

“I was married,” Cas said like he was trying to defend himself. “It’s a different context. And-and-and Claire doesn't need to look at nude women. Either in art or in sacrilegious fortune telling cards.”

“She’s seen  _ nude men  _ too, Cassy.”

“Who?”

Nick knew he was a bad person by the amount of joy he got from the tangible anger he’d pulled from his brother. It was incredibly difficult to rile the man up and it was nice to know that Nick hadn’t lost his touch. “Well, the cards this afternoon. Probably before that, back in London when she’d go to the art museum.  _ Definitely  _ back when she was a baby and she’d take baths with the maid’s son.”

“My daughter does not need to look at an unclothed man until she is married to one.”

“Well then I’ll be sure to talk to the ancient Greeks and those Italian renaissance painters about going back over their work to make sure that every man has trousers on so as not to offend your daughter’s delicate senses that you seem so convinced that she has.”

Castiel sat there brooding. The rough red marks around his throat and the purplish bruising here and there only added to the angry expression that he wore so badly. It wasn’t a good look on him. Very unnatural on someone with such a gentle temperament.

“Do you want me to do a reading for you?” Nick asked with a sideways smile. 

“No I do not want you to do a reading for me,” his brother hissed. 

“Sorry. I guess that was rude. Would  _ you  _ like to do a reading for me? You were the one who always had a knack for these things. I remember that one time you helped me make a spirit board to try and contact the ghost of Descartes. Or that one time you had me try to steal one of mom’s books so we could see if there were spells… love spells… for you.”

“Why are you like this?” Castiel demanded, though the anger was leaving him in small increments the longer they sat there.

“Because I’m a mean drunk.”

“You’re sober.”

“That’s part of the problem.”

“Nick…”

“Because I came home this morning to find your daughter alone and afraid,” the quiet concern and fears from that morning had easily turned to something bitter within him, “and then I have to get worried because my brother is off lost in the woods―woods that literally have monster in them, and there is fuck all that I can do to help him because someone has to stay behind and keep Claire safe from the bear or whatever tried to get into the house last night. Then you come waltzing up with that  _ Winchester  _ like you were coming back from a Sunday stroll in the park. You tell me, Cassy. What am I supposed to be like at a time like this? When I’m completely out of my element. When half of the only people I give a good god damn about is lost in the woods and falling into rivers and rolling in blackberry brambles or whatever it was that thrashed you up so badly.” 

With an almost sheepish expression, Castiel looked at his hands folded on the table top. “I am sorry for worrying you two.”

“You  _ should _ be sorry for coming out to find me. I can take care of myself. You know that.”

“When an afternoon turns into days I can’t help but start to doubt that invincible quality of yours… what happened to your shoulder?”

Nick straightened in his seat, feeling a little defensive because he hadn’t realised he’d been favoring the injury. “I’m fine.”

Humming in the most sarcastic way possible, Castiel pulled the broken lantern towards himself, pinchinching at the wick that refused to be threaded. “So... that blood on your shoulder is from someone else?”

Looking down, Nick saw the collection of dark red spots like freckles spread over his shoulder and arm. Sighing, he shrugged. “Sam tried to walk me home yesterday. We were attacked on the road.”

“Attacked?” Castiel glanced up. 

“It was a wild animal. We took care of it. I’m more than fine now. Just a bit of healing to do.”

“Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think Claire’s gone to sleep by now?”

Not at all what he’d been expecting, but it was such an easier question to answer than almost anything else his brother could have followed up with. “No. I think she’s pressing her ear to the door and listening as hard as she can to everything we say.”  

As if the house wanted to confirm his suspicions there came the soft telltale creek of floor boards from the direction of the bedroom. 

“Come sit outside with me?”

Nick looked away from the hall and back at Castiel, surprised. 

“Please?” He put took a candle from the table and used it to light the lantern that he seemed to have magically fixed in only the few moments they were speaking. “... like we used to when we were young.”

Which meant  _ alone _ ―something that they very rarely ever were since Nick went away to University to become a teacher, and Castiel went to London to join a seminary.

Though the lantern had betrayed him by letting another man fix it, Nick took the damn thing, trimming the wick and lowering the flame before getting to his feet and heading out the back door.

Castiel kept pace with him, his bare feet stepping timidly in the tall grass until they reached the stone wall around the overgrown garden. 

They sat in silence, breathing in air that tasted like the end of summer, a promise of colder weather on the light breeze. For a long time the only sound was crickets and frogs along the river singing whatever songs they had left for this season.

Surprisingly, Castiel broke first.

_ Unsurprisingly _ , he pushed aside the gentle hush in an odder way than normal. “It hasn’t been years since I’ve seen breasts.”

Nick had been watching the sky, examining where it touched the roof of their home, the sharp line occasionally interrupted by a white bird hopping about in the moonlight. But Nick frowned. Frowned harder than he had in weeks, and turned to look at his brother. 

“Pardon?”

“A woman came to me last night when I was lost in the woods. Naked as Eve in The Garden… but she looked like my Amelia.”

“Oh?” Nick honestly had no idea what to say to something like that. “What a shame I missed her. I wouldn’t have minded an unobstructed view of Amelia’s... assets. She certainly seemed like she’d been put together with more care and attention than other women. ”

“Please refrain from fantasizing about my dead wife. I’d rather not have to hit you tonight,” Castiel managed to make the request sound so very reasonable as he picket at loose stones atop the wall between them. “At a certain point last night it became obvious just how lost I’d managed to get myself. I ate a few things I found growing along the river bank and shortly after my head began to spin and my stomach hurt, and then I saw her.”

“...you poisoned yourself?”

“I have to assume so.”

“So,” they had never been the sort of brothers who had long talks about their feelings, or their fears, or any of the odd things that had gone so terribly wrong in their lives. It left Nick uncertain where to go from here. “You see your beautiful wife for the first time in nearly two decades, hallucination or not, what did you do?”

“What would you do if you were able to see your beautiful wife again, hallucination or not?”

Nick bit the inside of his cheek hard enough that he tased copper, fixing his eyes on that white bird pecking at their roof. “You never saw her. You have no idea what she looked like.”

“You told me about her once,” Castiel threw one of those tiny stones in the direction of their wood pile, watching it fall short, vanishing in the tall grass. “One night when you were too drunk on sherry to stand on your own.”

“That sounds like almost every day after I came back from India.” Nick joked in the most self deprecating way he could because it hurt less than remembering other things. “You did keep an awful lot of very cheap sherry around your home considering you don’t drink.”

“We used to sneak cooking sherry late at night when we were kids. When you came back I… I guess I just thought you’d find it more comforting than the other things you could try and drown yourself in.”

Nick snorted softly, shaking his head. 

“I kissed her,” Castiel said without warning, same as this whole conversation had started. “Or, I tried to… she bit my face and suddenly became a wolf.”

Shaking his head, Nick decided to simply embrace the weirdness of this conversation. “A real wolf, or another hallucination?”

Touching his hands to the angry marks on his throat, Castiel sighed. “Seemed very real to me at the time. It was like suddenly being back in boarding school.”

“Now just now many boys were you kissing back when we were in school?” Nick laughed softly, then louder when he saw color rising to his brother’s cheeks.

“I meant back in my first year. When I was getting into all those fights. The older boys laying into me because of all the trouble you’d made for them when you first came through.” He threw another pebble and it bounced a little closer to the wood pile. “I thought they were going to kill me, just like I thought that wolf was going to kill me.”

If they had been other men perhaps Nick would have offered a hug. But Castiel was well and whole beside him, just like he had been when they were kids and Nick had come all the way down to the infirmary to sit on the cot beside his brother. 

This was more their style. 

They were comfortable with the small space between them and the simple knowledge that both were safe.

  
  
  



	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * cough cough*  
> so.... I have no good excuse. This chapter has been sitting forever, edited, good to post, but I kept noodling with it, and then I was writing happy things, and then some lovely human mentioned to me that I hadn't updated in a while, so I suppose that's the universe's way of saying that I need to just go ahead and post.  
> A reread of the previous chapter might help you out, since it's legit been since May that this was updated D:  
> But yeah, something a little spoopy since Halloween is this week. We'll see if my cluttered mind can stay focused for a bit and maybe poke away at this story to get a few more chapters out.

 

_ 23rd of September, in the year of our Lord 1872 _

_ Though I know I was called to this town to provide moral and spiritual guidance I fear that I am not up to the task.  _

_ Next week the town will be holding an autumn festival in celebration of the final harvest of the season. Despite the obvious pagan aspects of it all, I was not able to come up with any slight alternative. _

_ Both waking and sleeping, my mind has been troubled with thoughts of the man who came to me in the woods. It has been two days and still I smell him on my skin. I dream of his breath against my face and the feel of his arms around me after he pulled me from the river. _

_ A fever has taken me, no doubt from my fall into the water, and I hope the illness is to blame for my uneasy state of mind.   _

“Papa?”

Castiel glanced up from his journal to see his daughter’s bright eyes smiling at him, and though she always looked lovely when she smiled it was all overshadowed by the monstrous white bird standing on her shoulder. 

As if were the most normal thing in the world, Claire turned in place to show off the creature who was tugging with its beak at one of the ribbons in her hair. “Isn’t she lovely?”

Castiel did not have an immediate answer to that. Pushing himself up a little straighter on the bed and closing his journal, he shook his head. “That’s the bird from the yard?”

“Yes,” Claire tickled a finger on the back of the bird’s neck and its pink eyes closed in obvious contentment. “I’ve been putting out food for her, and she finally let me pet her.” 

“My dove, wild animals… they don’t belong in the house.”

“But she’s so sweet.”

A cough tore at his throat, a sound which seemed to startle the bird, and its sharp cries drowned out the sickness that had settled into Castiel’s chest. 

“Papa?” Heedless of the animal on her shoulder, Claire drew closer to the bed, worry on her pretty face. “Do you need a drink?”

“No-no. I’m fine. I just need to rest.”

Even though he was the parent and she the child, he didn’t fight her as she took away his journal and pulled the blankets up to his shoulders. 

“You rest,” Claire patted his cheek. “Me and Princess Snowflake will get you some tea.”

Castiel hoped that the bird would not actually be helping in the making of his tea, just as he hoped that the terrible name that it had been given would be only temporary. 

 

**.:.**

 

The days might still be warm, but the autumn chill came around each night. Claire watched the rain water dripping through the broken window and onto the counter top. 

Sighing softly, she turned back to her untouched tea and well creased book. She’d spent her last two sleepless nights pouring over the journal, but the thin pages offered no help.There were detailed descriptions of plants that would help ease pains and aches, designs to draw in wax that would somehow prevent nightmares―but nothing to help ease her father’s fever.

Frustrated, Claire didn’t know which to blame, the writer of the old journal or her stubborn uncle who continued to assure her that her father’s illness, much like the rain, would pass. 

From down the hall a door opened and closed with a gentle click, and uncle stumbled his way blearily to the kitchen, sinking into a chair and resting his head into the cradle of his folded arms. 

“You still can’t sleep?” Claire asked even though the answer was obvious. 

“Not with his coughing.” Uncle lifted his head enough to fix her with his glass and red rimmed eyes, saying nothing at all of the way he cleared his throat in and effort to mask a cough of his own. “You should get some rest.”

“I can’t. I’m too worried.”

“Your papa just has a cold because he’s good at falling into rivers. He’ll be fine.”

“Papa doesn’t get sick.” Tired of this conversation before it could even start, she got to her feet and put the kettle back on the stove.

“Sad to say that he’s human just like the rest of us, and that means that from time to time he’s going to get sick.”

“But what if it’s influenza or-or what if he has scurvy?”

Uncle chuckled, the sound quickly cutting off in a sharp cough, a cough that he’d been denying that he had. “Your father does  _ not  _ have scurvy.” 

Claire hated being the one responsible for taking care of the two very stubborn men in her life. She’d grown up learning maths and history―not how to be a housewife or a nurse. She had no idea how to help her father or uncle. 

“I think we should fetch the doctor,” she said firmly.

And naturally, instead of agreeing with her like a sane person, he offered, “I think we should let him rest.”

“Let the  _ doctor  _ or Papa rest?”

“Yes,” Uncle urged with no clarification before adding, “I don’t need tea, my love.”

“Tea is good for you,” she insisted as she scooped tea leaves into the pot.

“Take it to your papa,” he said through a yawn.

“I don’t want to wake him.” Claire poured them both tea before dragging her chair close to Uncle’s and sitting back down, resting her head against his shoulder.

With a yawn that turned quickly into a sigh, he kissed the top of her head before laying his cheek against her hair and asking, “Are you tired or just worried?”

“Both.”

“He’ll be just fine. Let him rest a little longer and he’ll be feeling fine.”

She grumbled, curling her hands around the warmth of her tea cup. If Uncle was going to continue being this unreasonable, then he was forcing her to be the only functioning adult in the house, and she quietly hated him for it. 

Taking matters into her own hands she decided aloud, “If he’s not feeling better by tomorrow night then I will go bother the doctor.”

“If he doesn’t start getting better then  _ I _ will go bother the doctor,” he told her a little too hastily, coughing softly and raising his cup to his lips to try and hide the fact that they both knew he was in no shape to go anywhere.

**.:.**

 

It was the first time since landing on American soil that Claire needed her warm coat, and she wished that she’d brought it with her. Something about the inky deep shadows under the trees held so much more promise of winter than she’d seen in town. Thick fog flowed in off the river to swirl around her ankles and it felt so much like being back in London that Claire found herself at ease despite the unfamiliar noises of the forest around her.

There couldn’t have been a more beautiful morning for a walk. 

Other than the cold.

She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders, the lantern in her other hand swinging wildly for a moment, and she hoped that the faint dawn through the foliage overhead meant that the steadily rising sun would bring a bit of warmth. 

It was difficult to clearly see the road through the fog, which had never been an issue back in London, so she found she was rather relieved to see the welcoming glow of lights through the trees. 

After a few long minutes she got the irritating feeling that she hadn’t made any progress towards the welcoming glow. Slowing her steps, Claire looked back the way she’d come to see if perhaps the road had been turning, only to discover that the road was not where she’d left it. She’d never been lost back in London, the buildings were easy landmarks, landmarks that simply weren’t to be found out here. 

Each tree was a twin of the last, towering and quiet and much closer to her than she’d thought they should be. 

“Oh no,” she held the lantern higher, wishing it did anything to cut through the fog. All she’d needed to do was stay on the road and somehow she’d managed to get herself lost instead. With quiet determination she turned in the direction she thought she’d come from and did her best to make her way back to the road. 

Before she’d gone more than five steps the sound of branches snapping echoed oddly around her as the trees bent the sound making it impossible to tell what direction the noise had come from.

The lantern light bobbed as Claire pressed her shoulder into the nearest tree. “It’s a deer,” she told herself, “or a squirrel, and you’re being a silly girl.”

Still not quite over the fright of a few nights back, it took Claire a fair amount of encouragement to peel herself off the tree and resume walking. And she believed that she might have actually made it all the way back to the road if there hadn’t been a soft voice coming from the air around her whispering her name. 

“ _ Claire _ ?”

There was no need to answer, because Claire might talk to herself but she wouldn’t talk to the breeze. 

All she managed was a nervous sort of humming as she shuttered her lantern and tried her best to hide in the shadow of the nearest tree. Running might have been a better choice, but she didn’t know where she was and didn’t know where to go.

The voice came again, the words a jumbled sort of whisper that drifting in from so many different directions. More branches snapped, the sound growing and all at once Claire realised where it was coming from.

Up.

The noise was above her.

Running was still a fantastic option, but fear rooted her feet to the earth as she raised her face to see autumn leaves falling silently down around the dark figure climbing slowly downward. Far too big to be a raccoon or squirrel, it slithered between branches with unsettling agility.

From where she stood shaking, with her pulse pounding in her throat, Claire caught a glimpse of very round, very green eyes―and that was finally enough. Dropping her lantern in favor of pulling up the edges of her skirts, Claire ran. 

She’d never in her life struck someone, but the moment strong hands caught at Claire’s shoulders, she balled both hands into fists and turned around swinging. 

If she’d had to pick who or what to hit, to make a list of the people and things that she felt needed a sharp smack, Charlie Winchester would not have made that list. Thankfully the other woman didn’t seem to have much difficulty catching Claire’s hands and protecting herself from the determined attack. 

“Hey. Hey, it’s ok,” the woman whispered urgently, “it’s just me. Calm down.”

Feeling on the verge of panic, Claire laughed a little too loudly, shaking her head. “What are you doing out here?”

“I could ask you the same question.” Almost as if she was unsure of her own actions, Charlie released Claire’s wrists. “This is no place for a lady.”

That fear started to retreat, replaced by a simmering irritation at being told what to do. “You’re out here.”

“Yes, well, I’m hunting.” Charlie rolled one shoulder, nodding to the long rifle slung over her back. “There are wolves and bears and… and all sorts of other things in these woods. What on earth possessed you to come out here?”

“I was looking for you.”

A small smile caught on the corners of Charlie’s mouth. “Were you?”

“Papa’s sick,” Claire started to say but the rest of the explanation jammed up in her throat.

Charlie’s expression softened, her hands coming up to push hair from Claire face. “Then let’s go check on him.”

And though Claire would have preferred a more direct route back to her papa, there was a brief detour to the other woman’s home―after which, despite Charlie’s insistence, her brothers both came along. Sitting in the back of a wagon pulled by Mr. Dean’s monstrously large black horse was certainly faster than walking home would have been, but the unexpected change in plans made Claire feel small and uncertain.

Maybe Uncle had been right, maybe her father’s illness would pass on its own and she was making a fuss over nothing. Not only that, but her fears were starting to pull in innocent bystanders. 

“I… I didn’t mean to worry all of you,” Claire confessed softly to Dean.

He glanced sideways at her, the reigns flicking lightly in his hands. “Not worried at all. We already had the wagon loaded with drinks for the harvest celebration, and any celebration worth going to is one that has plenty to drink.”

“Well, all of the parties  _ I  _ went to back at home served tea.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. No offence, but you english all seem a bit tight laced.”

Claire smiled faintly and looked down at her lap, thinking that her uncle would have loved to prove this man wrong. 

Almost as if he knew someone had been thinking about him, Uncle Nick rounded the bend in the road, riding on the back of Mr. Singer’s old brown mare. His eyes widened in surprise as he took in the wagon and its occupants, but then his eyebrows lowered and the edges of his mouth went tight. 

It was an expression that Claire knew all too well.

“I only went to get the doctor,” she tried to explain before the lecture could start.

“You, young lady, snuck out of the house in the middle of the night―”

“To get the doctor,” Claire stuck to her story, only slightly mortified that her uncle would treat her like a child in front of relative strangers. She couldn’t bare to look at the three Winchesters out of pure embarrassment for what they must be thinking.

“Your father would have a fit if he knew what you’ve done. This isn’t London. There are no polite gentlemen or constables to see you home if you get lost. These woods aren’t safe, Claire.”

From the back of the wagon, Charlie leaned forward, her cheek almost brushing against Claire’s. “We wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”

“Forgive me if I don’t have much confidence in your family's ability to keep strangers in these woods so perfectly safe,” Nick drawled and rubbed distractedly at his shoulder. “Now, I’ll thank you for bringing my niece half way, but it’s time I take her back home.”

Claire was certain that she couldn’t have been more embarrassed if her uncle had simply come and lifted her out of the wagon.

Though Sam had spent the majority of the ride sitting on a cask in the back, the collar of his jacket pulled up and his hat pulled low, he cleared his throat. “We’re headed into town regardless. Probably safer for everyone if we all go on together.”

The Winchesters didn’t know Uncle. They didn’t know better than to argue with him.

And Claire was equal amounts confused and disappointed when Nick slowly nodded and turned his horse back towards town. Just like that. 

Dumbfounded at the lack of a fight, Claire sat huddled in her winter’s coat, rocking sofly side to side as the wagon resumed its steady rolling, doing her best not to turn around to watch the way her uncle rode at the back of the wagon, speaking so very softly to Sam. 

 

**.:.**

 

Even though the celebration wasn’t until this evening, the town was littered with people, women sitting in a quilter’s circle while their children played at the river bank, men leaning together against fence rails while smoking pipes, children running through the street. Bunting had been hung from the windows of the town hall and the mayor’s home, and tables and lanterns had been arranged in the center of town in anticipation of this evening’s meal. 

Dean had shrugged off his coat while unloading the cart, sweat sticking his shirt to his back, but now that they were finished with their work he wasn’t inclined to put it back on. Though a perpetual autumn drizzle had refused to leave the woods for nearly a week now, the sun was still shining here in town, a damp cool breeze from the north keeping it from being too hot. It was damn strange weather for this time of year, and he meant to bring it up to his brother, but when he turned he saw Sam looking out across the river in the direction of the church yard. 

“You wanna head back up an’ collect Charlie?”

Shrugging one shoulder Sam asked, “You think she’s done with the preacher?”

“I’m sure he’s got nothin’ more than the sniffles and Charlie has moved on to trying to find a place to be alone with the man’s daughter.”

Sam turned back, eyes widened just a hint. “She wouldn’t.”

Taking hold of Baby’s reigns, Dean laughed and began walking. “Wouldn’t she thought?”

Both brothers had been incredibly aware of their sister’s unusual interest in other women for years. It was the sort of problem that would have had an easy solution if only they’d lived in a big city. Charlie would most likely have found another woman like herself and the two would have moved in together as spinster ‘cousins’ with their neighbors none the wiser to what was going on behind closed doors. 

It was a real shame that Waterbridge was such a small town and everyone knew everyone else’s business.

“So…” Dean looked over the horse’s back to his younger brother, “what were you and your angry friend talking about back there?”

The thin, hard line of Sam’s mouth was his only protest to Nick being called his ‘friend’, and after a long breath he shrugged and looked back to the road ahead of them. “Nothing really. Just small talk.”

“You make any sense of your vision yet?”

Sam didn’t answer at all, and when Dean glanced over he saw on his brother an expression he’d never seen before. 

“Is that a yes?” He asked haltingly, not sure if he should take his brother’s silence as a good or bad.

“I’m still working on it.”

“You know, I’m not Charlie, I can’t hold your hand and just  _ know _ . You want help with this one you’re going to have to come out and tell me what you saw.”

Sam turned his face towards the cloudless sky, taking a long breath before saying slowly, “I saw him telling me goodbye.”

“T-that’s it?” Dean laughed.

“That’s it.”

What a stupid thing to get worked up over―but he couldn’t tell his brother that without starting some kind of argument, so Dean let it go. There were more interesting problems at hand.

Like why the good reverend was standing on the edge of the cemetery with a blanket around his shoulders like some sort of ghost. 

Charlie and Claire nowhere in sight.

Without a second thought, or even a first one, Dean abandoned his horse on the road and strode through the tall grass. The morning sun pulled long shadows out behind the church, the preacher standing in the dim as still and cold as one of the graves. 

Ignoring all manners he’d ever been taught Dean caught a fistfull of blanket, pulling the preacher around to face him. “Thought you were sick. Shouldn’t you be laying down?”

It was possible that Castiel never looked well, if the two times that Dean had seen him now were any indication. The man had mournfully dark eyes, cheeks ruddy with fever.

“The women needed to be alone,” he said simply, like he actually thought that was reason enough for him to be outside only half dressed.

“Alone?” Dean could easily think of at least one very good reason why leaving Charlie alone with this man’s daughter might not be the best plan. “Well, come on, let’s wait inside.”

Castiel remained firmly planted with his bare feet looking oh so pale in the long grass. 

“Come on, preacher,” Dean tugged again, “you look half dead.”

Glancing back at the rows of grave markers, the man shook his head. “I can’t let Claire see it like this.”

Confused, Dean followed the man’s gaze and felt his heart jump to his throat.

Laying in his own blood, the grass around him wet and at least two graves smeared with red, lay Eloi. The familiar white raven was crumpled, sightless eyes fixed on the sky. Both wings looked broken, twisted unnaturally behind his painfully arched back. 

“Well… shit,” the words leaving Dean’s mouth before he could think of something better to say. 

Sam came up beside them, taking it all in, an uneasy noise his only notable reaction. 

“I saw it through the window,” Castiel pulled his blanket tight across his shoulders, “but I don’t have the heart to do what needs to be done.”

“What needs to…” Dean looked from the reverend down to the broken creature, pity rising up as Eloi twitched, beak clicking and a reedy wordless noise wheezed out.

It sang of pain and a need to be set free, and there was only one reason Dean could guess for why the creature would even be in this state. Eloi was still here in a broken body because Eloi couldn’t leave. 

Which was a disturbing thought.

This wasn’t the work of a stray cat.

Cats wouldn’t have driven a nail into the bird’s chest, burying the metal so deep that only a faint glint of iron could be seen dimpling the ruffled and filthy feathers.

“Claire has been sharing biscuits with the thing,” Castiel shook his head, “she’ll be heartbroken to see it suffering. I hate to ask, but would one of you be willing to―”

“I’ve got it,” Sam spoke up, giving Dean a very heavy look over the preacher’s head. “You get him inside, I’ll take care of the  _ bird _ .”

They would owe Eloi for this. 

As Dean lead Castiel back towards the white farm house he heard the unmistakable crunch of bones from behind them.

They would owe Elio at least two new skulls for this.

The skin on the back of Dean’s neck itched and he found his fingers reaching uselessly for the strap of the rifle that he’d left in the wagon. 

Something had happened. Something had caught hold of the spy he’d sent here, had folded the creature in half, and had torn open its throat so it couldn’t speak.

Even though Dean  _ could  _ call Eloi back, the ritual would mean leaving the preacher’s side, which wasn’t something Dean was willing to do right then.

  
  
  
  
  


 


End file.
